Pronunciation [ˈjine] Native speakers 5,000 (2000–2004) | Native to Peru | |
Ethnicity Yine people, Manchineri Language family Arawakan
Southern
Piro
Piro ISO 639-3 Either:
pib – Yine
mpd – Machinere (Manitenére) | ||
Piro is a Maipurean language spoken in Peru. It belongs to the Piro group which also includes Iñapari (†) and Apurinã. The principal variety is Yine. The Manchineri who live in Brazil (Acre) and reportedly also in Bolivia speak what may be a dialect of Yine (Aikhenvald, Kaufman). A vocabulary labeled Canamaré is "so close to Piro [Yine] as to count as Piro", but has been a cause of confusion with the unrelated Kanamarí language.
This language is also called Contaquiro, Pira, Piro, Pirro, Simiranch, or Simirinche. Cushichineri has been reported as a language, but is actually a family name used with Whites (Matteson 1965). The name Mashco has sometimes been incorrectly applied to the Yine. (See Mashco Piro.)
As of 2000, essentially all of the 4,000 ethnic Yine people speak the language. They live in the Ucayali and Cusco Departments, near the Ucayali River, and near the Madre de Dios River in the Madre de Dio Region in Peru. Literacy is comparatively high. A dictionary has been published in the language and the language is taught alongside Spanish in some Yine schools. There are also a thousand speakers of Machinere.
Piro has an active–stative syntax.