Wayuu language
Wayuu (Wayuu: Wayuunaiki [waˈjuːnaiki]), or Guajiro, is a major Arawakan language spoken by 400,000 indigenous Wayuu people in northwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia on the Guajira Peninsula and surrounding Lake Maracaibo.
This article is about the language spoken in South America. For the language of Nepal, see Wayu language.Wayuu
790,000 Wayuu people (2011 & 2019 censuses)[1]
420,000 (2008–2012)[1]
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Northern
- Ta-Arawakan
- Wayuu
- Ta-Arawakan
Centro Etnoeducativo Kamusuchiwoꞌu
There were an estimated 300,000 speakers of Wayuunaiki in Venezuela in 2012 and another 120,000 in Colombia in 2008, approximately half the ethnic population of 400,000 in Venezuela (2011 census) and 400,000 in Colombia (2018 census).[1] Smith (1995) reports that a mixed Wayuu—Spanish language is replacing Wayuunaiki in both countries. However, Campbell (1997) could find no information on this.
Recent developments[edit]
To promote bilingual education among Wayuu and other Colombians, the Kamusuchiwoꞌu Ethno-educative Center (Spanish: Centro Etnoeducativo Kamusuchiwoꞌu) came up with the initiative of creating the first illustrated Wayuunaiki–Spanish, Spanish–Wayuunaiki dictionary.[2]
In December 2011, the Wayuu Taya Foundation and Microsoft presented the first ever dictionary of technology terms in Wayuunaiki,[3][4] after having developed it for three years with a team of technology professionals and linguists.
Dialects[edit]
The two main dialects are Wüinpümüin and Wopumüin, spoken in the northeast and southwest of the peninsula, respectively. These dialects are mutually intelligible, as they are minimally distinct. The extinct Guanebucan language may actually have been a dialect of Wayuunaiki.. The main difference between Wüinpümüin and Wopümüin is that Wüinpümüin uses jia as the 3rd person feminine pronoun, and jaya for the second person plural, while Wopümüin uses shia as the 3rd person feminine, and jia as the second person plural. There are minor vocabulary differences, but the main one is only related to the pronouns, and their respective prefixes.[5]
Syntax[edit]
In general, the verb precedes the subject and the latter precedes the object or predicate (VSO type). However, word order is not restricted and there can be sentences in other word orders. Two predication schemes are presented: a bifurcated predicate-subject one and a synthetic one, predicate-centered or compact,[13] in which the sentence is composed of only one phrase with a verbal nucleus. Conjugation is done through personal prefixes, infixes and suffixes of mode, time and aspect and number-gender of the object. Negation is indicated with the prefix m-, although there is also the negative verb nnojolaa ("not to be", "not to be", "not to have"), and also "not to have" or "not to have" can be expressed with the prefix ma- followed by the respective noun.
The following are examples of Wayuunaiki.[14]
Wayuunaiki itself comes from wayuu 'human being/people' and the suffix -naiki, from anüiki 'speech' ('word' or 'language'), literally meaning '[the] people’s speech'.
