Witotoan, also spelled Huitotoan or Uitotoan, is a small family of nine languages spoken in the Amazonas department of southeastern Colombia and the neighboring region of Peru. Its living branches are Ocaina and Witoto Proper, the latter containing the Nipode, Minica and Murui varieties, along with the nearly extinct but reviving Nonuya; three further languages, Andoquero, Koeruna and Koihoma, are extinct and unclassified within the family. Whether Witotoan is an independent family or forms a single Bora-Witoto family with the neighboring Boran languages is disputed: Herman Aschmann proposed the connection in 1993, but a 2016 study by Juan Alvaro Echeverri and Frank Seifart rejected it.
Facts
RegionSoutheastern Colombia (Amazonas Department) and the neighbouring region of Peru 1 Proto-Language StatusProto-Witotoan was reconstructed by Richard Aschmann (1993); a proposed wider Bora-Witoto stock linking Witotoan to the Boran family (Aschmann 1993) has been refuted by more recent work (Echeverri and Seifart 2016). 1 In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Colombia, found in there.
- Also in Geography Atlas: Peru, found in there.
- Also in Geography Atlas: South America, found in there.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Witotoan Languages
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction, first sentence
Witotoan...is a small language family of southeastern Colombia (Amazonas Department) and the neighbouring region of Peru.
Genetic relations section
Aschmann (1993) proposed that the Boran and Witotoan language families were related, in a Bora-Witoto stock. Echeverri & Seifart (2016) refute the connection.
View the Source Wikidata: Witotoan
Wikidata Q43079317, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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