Hodi, also spelled Jodi or Joti, and also known as Yuwana, Waruwaru or Chikano, is a small unclassified language spoken by the Hodi people of central Venezuela, who call themselves Jojodo and their language Jojodo tjiweney. As of 2007 the language had around 640 speakers, concentrated in the communities of San Jose de Kayama and Cano Iguana, most of them monolingual hunter-gatherers. Linguists have proposed connecting Hodi to the Piaroa-Saliban languages, to the Nadahup languages, or to the Yanomaman languages, but none of these hypotheses is proven, and the language is treated as unclassified rather than confidently placed in any family.
Facts
RegionSpoken in central Venezuela by the Hodi people, chiefly in the communities of San Jose de Kayama and Cano Iguana. 1 Speaker CountEthnologue-derived 2007 figure of 640 native speakers; Wikipedia prose describes several hundred speakers concentrated in the two largest communities, consistent with this count. Proto-Language StatusHodi is a small unclassified language with no established proto-language. A recent proposal groups it with the Piaroa-Saliban languages as branches of a single Jodi-Saliban macrofamily, but this is not yet an established classification. 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Hodi Language
WikipediaLead section, subject description
The Hodï (Jodï, Jotí, Hoti) language, also known as Yuwana (Yoana), Waruwaru (Waruwadu), or Chikano (Chicano), is a small unclassified language spoken by the Hodï people of Venezuela.
Communities and speaker count section
The two communities with the most speakers are San José de Kayamá and Caño Iguana, with several hundred speakers total.
Classification section, Jodi-Saliban macrofamily proposal
A recent proposal classifies Hodï and (Piaroa, )Saliban as the branches of a single Jodï-Saliban macrofamily.
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