Language Atlas

How Languages Connect
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Language Family

Piaroa-Saliban

South American Language Families

The Piaroa-Saliban languages, also known as the Saliban languages, are a small family of the middle Orinoco Basin, forming a linguistic island within an area of Venezuela and Colombia otherwise dominated by peoples of Cariban and Arawakan affiliation. The family comprises 11 languages, and some linguists have proposed a possible relationship to the Duho languages, though this remains unconfirmed.

Facts
Region
Middle Orinoco Basin, forming a linguistic island within northern llanos areas of Venezuela and Colombia. 1
Proto-Language Status
No published proto-Piaroa-Saliban reconstruction was found; the family's internal relationships rest on comparative lexical evidence rather than a formal reconstruction. 1
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Piaroa-Saliban languages
Wikipedia
  • Introduction, first sentence
    The Piaroa-Saliban, also known as Saliban (Spanish: Sálivan), are a small language family of the middle Orinoco Basin
  • Languages section
    The extinct Ature language, once spoken on the Orinoco River near the waterfalls of Atures, Venezuela, is unattested but was said to be little different from Saliba
View the Source
Wikidata: Piaroa-Saliban
Wikidata Q269032, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.