Athena Review Image Archive  


Map of Languages in Amazonia



Language map of Amazonia (after Mason 1950, and SIL Ethnologue 1996).


The map shows  the great diversity of individual languages in the Amazon and Orinoco Basins. Major language families, grouped by colors, include Arawakan (green), Carib (purple), and Tupi-Guarani (light blue). Arawakan was the largest single family, including the Taino in the Greater Antilles, representing Neo-Indian migrations after AD 200. Arawakan (green) includes 74 languages, divided into Aruan, Guahiban, Harakmbet, and Maipuran branches. Later migrants  to the Antilles were the Caribs, whose languages (purple) are divided into two branches, 21 Northern and 8 Southern.

Some 70 Tupi-Guaraní languages (light blue, at right) are grouped into nine branches centered in southern Amazonia, one dialect serving as a trading lingua franca during the Colonial and recent periods in Amazonia. A total of 34 language families and over a dozen isolated stocks combining about 1000 individual languages have been identified in South America.


Athena Review Image Archive™              Main index of Athena Review

Copyright  ©  1996-2019    Rust Family Foundation   (All Rights Reserved).

.