Mawayana (Mahuayana), also known as Mapidian (Maopidyán), is a moribund Arawakan language of northern South America. It used to be spoken by people living in ethnic Wai-wai and Tiriyó villages in Brazil, Guyana and Suriname. As of 2015, the last two speakers of the language are living in Kwamalasamutu.
History In the 1840s, the Mawayana were in contact with the Taruma, but both groups have amalgamated with the Wai-wai people, and those who joined have lost both their languages. Only two elderly women, who were part of a group of Mawayana who accompanied American missionaries to convert the Tiriyó people, and subsequently moved in with them, still spoke the language in 2015, and their children did not speak Mawayana. A few rememberers exist who do not use it on a daily basis.
Classification lists Mawayana (and possibly Mawakwa as a dialect) together with Wapishana under a Rio Branco (North-Arawak) branch of the Arawakan family. notes that Mawayana "is closely related to Wapishana" and according to they share at least 47% of their lexicon.
Phonology Mawayana has, among its consonants, two implosives, and , and what has been described as a "retroflex fricativised rhotic", represented with , that it shares with Wapishana. The vowel systems contains four vowels (), each of which has a nasalised counterpart.
Consonants + Mawayana consonant phonemes: Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Plosive Fricative Rhotic Nasal Glide
Vowels Mawayana vowel phonemes: FrontCentralBackClose~Close-midOpen
Vowels have both nasal and length contrast.
Morphology {| class="wikitable" |+ Mawayana personal affixes:Meira, Sérgio. 2019. A Study of the Genetic Relation between Mawayana and Wapishana (Arawakan Family) . Revista Brasileira de Línguas Indígenas (RBLI), vol. 2, no. 1 (Jan.-Jun. 2019), pp. 70-104. ! ! singular ! plural |- ! 1 | n-/m- -na | wa- -wi |- ! 2 | ɨ-/i- -i | ɨ- -wiko |- ! 3 | ɾ(ɨ/iʔ)- -sɨ | na- -nu |- ! 3 refl. | a-
{| class="wikitable" |+ Mawayana verbal affixes: | thematic || -ta, -ɗa, -ɓa |- | present || -e |- | reciprocal || -(a)ka |- | adjectival || -ɾe, -ke
Morphosyntax Mawayana has a polysynthetic morphology, mainly head-marking and with suffixes, although there are pronominal prefixes. The verbal arguments are indexed on the verb through subject suffixes on intransitive verbs, while agent prefixes and object suffixes on transitive verbs.
Verb roots Verbal roots in Mawayana may be composed of at least one consonant ( 'say', 'do'), and the root must end in a consonant.
Notes
References
External links The Last of the Mawayana by Unravel magazine