Mawayana language

Mawayana
Mapidian
Native to	Guyana
Native speakers	2 (2013)
Language family	Arawakan North Arawak Rio Branco (Wapishanan) Mawayana
Dialects	Mawakwa?
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: mzx – Mawayana mpw – Mapidian (duplicate code)
Glottolog	mapi1252  (Mapidian) mawa1268  (Mawakwa)

Mawayana (Mahuayana), also known as Mapidian (Maopidyán), is a moribund Arawakan language of Guyana.

Classification

Aikhenvald (1999) lists Mawayana (and possibly Mawakwa as a dialect) together with Wapishana under a Rio Branco (North-Arawak) branch of the Arawakan family. Carlin (2006:314) notes that Mawayana "is closely related to Wapishana" and according to Ramirez (2001:530) they share at 47% of their lexicon.

Phonology

Mawayana has, among its consonants, two implosives, /ɓ/ and /ɗ/, and what has been described as a "retroflex fricativised rhotic", represented with ⟨rž⟩, that it shares with Wapishana. The vowel systems contains four vowels (/i-e, a, ɨ, u-o/), each of which has a nasalised counterpart.

Morphosyntax

Mawayana has a polysynthetic morphology, mainly head-marking and with suffixes, although there are pronominal prefixes. The verbal arguments are indexed on the verb through subject suffixes on intransitive verbs, while agent prefixes and object suffixes on transitive verbs (Carlin 2006:319).

n-kataba-sï

1A-grab.PAST-3O

'I grabbed him.'

tõwã-sï

sleep.PAST-3S

'He fell asleep.'

nnu	a-na	mauɗa	chika-dza	Mawayana
1PN	when-1S	die	NEG-COMPL	mawayana
'When I die there will be no Mawayana left at all.'