Wapishana language


Wapishana is an Arawakan language of Guyana and Brazil.
Kaufman considered Wapishana, Atorada, and Mapidian to be dialects. separates Mawayana/Mapidian/Mawakwa from Wapishana, and she includes them in a Rio Branco branch. Ethnologue notes that Atorada has 50% lexical similarity with Wapishana and 20% with Mapidian, and that Wapishana and Mapidian share 10%.

Language contact

Wapishana and Pemon, a Cariban language, have borrowed heavily from each other due to intensive mutual contact.