Geographic
distribution western Amazon | Glottolog zapa1251 | |
 | ||
Linguistic classification Saparo–Yawan ?
Zaparoan | ||
Zaparoan (also Sáparoan, Záparo, Zaparoano, Zaparoana) is an endangered language family of Peru and Ecuador with fewer than 100 speakers. Zaparoan speakers seem to have been very numerous before the arrival of the Europeans but their groups have been decimated by imported diseases and warfare and only a handful of them have survived.
Contents
Languages
There were 39 Zaparoan-speaking tribes at the beginning of the 20th century, every one of them presumably using its own distinctive language or dialect. Most of them have become extinct before being recorded, however, and we have information only about nine of them.
Aushiri and Omurano are included by Stark (1985). Aushiri is generally accepted as Zaparoan, but Omurano remains unclassified in other descriptions.
Genetic relations
The relationship of zaparoan languages with other language families of the area is uncertain. It is generally considered isolated. Links with other languages or families have been proposed but none has been widely accepted so far.
Pronouns
Zaparoan languages distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive we and consider the first person singular as the default person. A rare feature is the existence of two sets of personal pronouns with different syntactic values according to the nature of the sentence. Active pronouns are subject in independent clauses and object in dependent ones, while passive pronouns are subject in independent clauses and passive in dependent ones :
Thus