

Piaroa–Saliban languages

Colombia and Venezuela
Linguistic classificationJodï–Saliban?
  • Piaroa–Saliban

The Saliban (Salivan) languages, also known as Piaroa–Saliban or Saliba–Piaroan, are a small proposed language family of the middle Orinoco Basin, which forms an independent island within an area of Venezuela and Colombia (northern llanos) dominated by peoples of Carib and Arawakan affiliation.

Family division

A connection between the two primary divisions, Piaroan and Sáliba, is widely assumed but has not been demonstrated.[2] In addition, Hotï is "probably" related.[3]

Piaroan is a language or dialect cluster, consisting of Piaroa itself, Wirö (or "Maco"), and the extinct Ature. The Piaroa and Wirö both consider their languages to be distinct: they can understand each other, but not reliably.

Proposals have been put forth grouping the Hotï language (Jodï) with Piaroa–Saliban in a single Jodï–Saliban family.[4][5] Hotï was little known until recently and remains unclassified in most accounts. There is also a proposal for including Jodï–Saliban in the putative Duho stock.[6]


  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Saliban". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ^ Aikhenvald & Dixon, 1999, The Amazonian Languages
  3. ^ Zent S & E Zent. 2008. Los Hoti, in Aborigenes de Venezuela, vol. 2, second edition [1]
  4. ^ Rosés Labrada, Jorge Emilio. 2015. "Is Jodï a Sáliban Language?." Paper presented at the Workshop on Historical relationships among languages of the Americas, Leiden, 2-5 September 2015. 18pp.
  5. ^ Rosés Labrada, Jorge Emilio (2019). "Jodï-Sáliban: A Linguistic Family of the Northwest Amazon". International Journal of American Linguistics. 85 (3): 275–311. doi:10.1086/703238.
  6. ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo (2016), Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas., Brasilia: UnB. PhD Dissertation.

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