Wayoró language

Wayoró is a moribund Tuparian language, which is spoken in the state of Rondônia, in the Amazon region of Brazil. As of 2019, there were reported to be 3 speakers and 11 semispeakers out of the ethnic population of approximately 250.

Dialects

The Wajuru people is subdivided into three subgroups: the Ngwayoroiat, the Ngwãkũyãian, and the Kupndiiriat. Some lexical and phonological differences have been reported between the varieties spoken by the Ngwayoroiat and by the Kupndiiriat.

Phonology

Consonants

The graphemes which correspond to each phoneme are given in.

	labial	alveolar	palatal	velar	labio-velar	glottal
plosive
nasal
sonorant

Underlying nasal consonants may be partially or fully oralized in oral environments. Nogueira describes the following allophones:

/m/ →,
/n/ →,
/ɲ/ →,
/ŋ/ →,
/ŋʷ/ →,

Syntax

As in other Tuparian languages, the main clauses of Wayoró follow the cross-linguistically rare nominative–absolutive pattern. Person prefixes on the verb are absolutive, i.e., they index the sole argument of an intransitive verb and the patient argument of a transitive verb. Person pronouns, which follow the verb are nominative: they may encode the sole argument of an intransitive verb or the agent argument of a transitive verb, but not the patient of a transitive verb. This is exemplified below.