Yao language (Trinidad)

Yao (Jaoi, Yaoi, Yaio, Anacaioury) is an extinct Cariban language of Trinidad and French Guiana, attested in a single 1640 word list recorded by Joannes de Laet. It is thought that the Yao people migrated from the Orinoco to the islands perhaps a century earlier, after the Kaliña. The name 'Anacaioury' is that of a number of chiefs encountered over a century or so.

Yao is too poorly attested to classify within Cariban with any confidence, though Terrence Kaufman links it to the extinct Tiverikoto. A few of the attested words are:

nonna or noene 'moon', weyo 'sun', capou 'céu', chirika 'star', pepeïte 'wind', kenape 'rain', soye 'earth', parona 'sea', ouapoto 'fire', aroua 'jaguar', pero 'dog' (from Spanish)