Warekena (Guarequena), or more precisely Warekena of Xié, is an
Arawakan language
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient Indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...
of
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
and of
Maroa Municipality
The Maroa Municipality () is one of the seven municipalities (municipios) that makes up the southern Venezuelan state of Amazonas and, according to the 2011 census by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, the municipality had a popu ...
in
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
, spoken near the
Guainia River. It is one of several languages which go by the generic name
Baré and ''Baniwa/Baniva'' – in this case, distinguished as Baniva de Maroa or Baniva de Guainía.
There may be 10 speakers in Brazil and 200 in Venezuela, per Aikhenvald (1999).
Kaufman (1994) classified it in a Warekena group of Western Nawiki Upper Amazonian, Aikhenvald (1999) in Eastern Nawiki.
Personal pronouns in Warekena are formed by adding an emphatic suffix ''-ya'' to the cross-referencing personal prefixes.
[ Cited in Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. ''Pronouns.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 25]
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
can also range to .
Grammar
Unmarked constituent order is AVO, VS
o, S
aV, or S
ioV.
Indirect objects tend to be placed immediately after the predicate.
References
Languages of Brazil
Languages of Venezuela
Arawakan languages
{{Arawakan-lang-stub