Maipure language

Maipure
Native to	Venezuela
Region	Orinoco
Extinct	Late 18th century^[citation needed]
Language family	Arawakan Northern Upper Amazonian Orinoco (Yavitero) or Western Nawiki Maipure
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	qij
Glottolog	maip1246

Maipure (Maypure, Mejepure), was a language once spoken along the Ventuari, Sipapo, and Autana rivers of Amazonas and, as a lingua franca, in the Upper Orinoco region. It became extinct around the end of the eighteenth century. Zamponi provided a grammatical sketch of the language and furnished a classified word list, based on all of its extant eighteenth century material (mainly from the Italian missionary Filippo S. Gilij).^[1] It is historically important in that it formed the cornerstone of the recognition of the Maipurean (Arawakan) language family.^{[citation needed]}

Kaufman (1994) gives its closest relatives as Yavitero and other languages of the Orinoco branch of Upper Amazon Arawakan. Aikhenvald places it instead in the Western Nawiki branch.^[2]

Notes and references

1. Zamponi, Raoul (2003). Maipure. Languages of the World. Materials 192. Munich: Lincom Europa. ISBN 978-3-89586-757-6.
2. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (1999). "The Arawak language family". In Dixon, R. M. W.; Aikhenvald, A. Y. (eds.). The Amazonian languages. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. ?. ISBN 978-0-521-57021-3.