The Yaruro language (also spelled ''Llaruro'' or ''Yaruru''; also called Yuapín or Pumé) is an indigenous language spoken by

Yaruro people The Yaruro people (or Pumé, according to their self-determination) are a Circum- Caribbean indigenous people, native to the ecoregion of Llanos in Venezuela, located west of the Orinoco River.

, along the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

, Cinaruco,

Meta Meta (from the Greek μετά, '' meta'', meaning "after" or "beyond") is a prefix meaning "more comprehensive" or "transcending". In modern nomenclature, ''meta''- can also serve as a prefix meaning self-referential, as a field of study or ende ...

, and Apure rivers of

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. It is not well classified; it may be an

isolate Isolate may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Isolate'' (film), a 2013 Australian film * ''Isolate'' (Circus Maximus album), 2007 * ''Isolate'' (Gary Numan album), 1992 Language * Isolating language, with near-unity morpheme/word ...

, or distantly related to the extinct

Esmeralda language Esmeralda, or ''Esmeraldeño'' (also called ''Takame'' or ''Atacame''), is an extinct language isolate formerly spoken in the coastal region of Ecuador, specifically in the western part of Esmeraldas Province. The only existing data for Atacam ...

Genetic relations

Pache (2016) considers Yaruro to be related to the

Chocoan languages The Choco languages (also Chocoan, Chocó, Chokó) are a small family of Native American languages spread across Colombia and Panama. Family division Choco consists of six known branches, all but two of which are extinct. *The Emberá langua ...

, citing evidence from lexical and

sound correspondence In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...

s. Some shared lexical items between Yaruro and Chocoan (Pache (2016) cites Yaruro and Epena forms from the

Intercontinental Dictionary Series The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An ...

): :

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Saliba-Hodi,

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

, Bora-Muinane, Choko, Witoto-Okaina, and Waorani language families due to contact.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvlad & R. M. Dixon (1999). p. 378.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items. :

Notes

External links

Yaruro
(

) {{South American languages Indigenous languages of the South American Northern Foothills Languages of Venezuela Language isolates of South America Esmeralda–Yaruroan languages