Tucanoan

Tucanoan, also spelled Tukanoan, is a family of roughly two dozen languages spoken across the Amazon regions of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, with most of its languages historically concentrated in Colombian territory. The family divides into a Western Tucanoan and an Eastern Tucanoan branch, and is counted among the world's primary language families. Researchers have documented lexical similarities between Tucanoan and several neighboring Amazonian families, including Arutani, Paez, Witoto-Okaina and Panoan, reflecting a long history of contact among the region's languages rather than a demonstrated genetic relationship.