Pijao language


Pijao is an unclassified indigenous American language that was spoken in the villages of Ortega, Coyaima and Natagaima in the Magdalena River Valley of Colombia until the 1950s.

Subdivisions

Pijao subtribes reported by Rivet and cited in Mason :

Classification

A small vocabulary list was collected in 1943; only 30 Pijao words and expressions are known.
The few words which resemble Carib are thought to be loans; toponyms in Pijao country are also Carib. Marshall & Seijas did not detect significative connections between Pijao and other unclassified languages of the area: Colima, Muzo, Pantágora, and Panche, but these are even more poorly attested than Pijao.
Jolkesky also notes that there are lexical similarities with the Witoto-Okaina languages.

Vocabulary