Yabarana language

Yawarana is a member of the Cariban language family. Their first mention as such was in 1782 by the Jesuit Filippo Salvatore Gilii, who obtained the information from the Tamanaku. Girard (1971) grouped Yawarana with Mapoyo in his eighth subgroup out of 15 which he had devised for the Cariban family. However, he doubted the close classification of Yawarana with Mapoyo, instead suspecting a close relationship with Pemon. The two are placed in Marshall Durbin's (1977) classification, which is, however, rejected by modern scholarship,^[4] with the Panare language, separating them from Tamanaku. A comparative study on Tamanaku in 1990 by Mattei Muller and Henley (1990) found much lexical similarity between Mapoyo, Yawarana, and Tamanaku, but much fewer for Panare and Cumanagoto. Terrence Kaufman's (1994) classification, also outdated,^[4] grouped Mapoyo-Yawarana in his Central branch with Yeꞌkuana, Apalaí, and Wayana, also adding Cumanagoto and closely related Chaima.^[5] He also described Tamanaku as a synonym of Mapoyo-Yawarana.^[6] A "link" between Mapoyo and Yawarana, Pémono, was identified in 1998 by Mattei Muller, and at the time was spoken by only one woman; she died soon after.^[5]

As of 2012, Yawarana was spoken by 151 people, and was seriously endangered at the time.^[1]