Saparo–Yawan (Zaparo–Yaguan, Zaparo–Peba) is a language family proposal uniting two small language families of the western
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
. It was first proposed by Swadesh (1954), and continues through Payne (1984) and Kaufman (1994).
[Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the world's languages'' (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.]
Links
There are also four
language isolates and otherwise
unclassified language
An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...
s which have been indirectly linked to Saparo–Yawan, and for convenience they are included here. Tovar (1984) proposed a connection between Zaparoan and the otherwise unclassified Taushiro; Stark (1985) and Gordon (2005) see a connection with the extinct Omurano language. The extinct Awishiri and the Candoshi isolate have lexical similarities with Taushiro, Omurano, and each other; however, the four languages also have lexical similarities with Zaparoan,
Jivaroan, and
Arawakan. These six languages and families in the table at right have ''not'' been linked in any coherent fashion. Given that Candoshi is well described, this is something that may be resolved relatively soon.
Proposed classification
This forms part of Kaufman's
Macro-Andean proposal:
*Sáparo–Yawan (Kaufman 2007)
**
Sáparo (Zaparoan)
**Yawan
***
Peva–Yawan (Peba–Yaguan)
***
Sabela (Huaorani)
***
Taushiro, almost extinct
***
Omurano
See also
*
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
References
Proposed language families
Indigenous languages of the Americas
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