Mawayana language

Mawayana (Mahuayana), also known as Mapidian (Maopidyán), is a moribund Arawakan language of northern South America. It used to be spoken by Mawayana people people living in ethnic Wai-wai and Tiriyó villages in Brazil, Guyana and Suriname. As of 2015, the last two speakers of the language are living in Kwamalasamutu.

Classification
lists Mawayana (and possibly Mawakwa as a dialect) together with Wapishana under a Rio Branco (North-Arawak) branch of the Arawakan family. notes that Mawayana "is closely related to Wapishana" and according to they share at least 47% of their lexicon.

Phonology
Mawayana has, among its consonants, two implosives, and, and what has been described as a "retroflex fricativised rhotic", represented with $⟨rž⟩$, that it shares with Wapishana. The vowel systems contains four vowels, each of which has a nasalised counterpart.

Vowels
Mawayana vowel phonemes:

Vowels have both nasal and length contrast.

Morphology

 * {| class="wikitable"

! ! singular ! plural ! 1 ! 2 ! 3 ! 3 refl.
 * + Mawayana personal affixes:
 * n-/m- -na
 * wa- -wi
 * ɨ-/i- -i
 * ɨ- -wiko
 * ɾ(ɨ/iʔ)- -sɨ
 * na- -nu
 * a-
 * }
 * }


 * {| class="wikitable"


 * + Mawayana verbal affixes:
 * thematic || -ta, -ɗa, -ɓa
 * present || -e
 * reciprocal || -(a)ka
 * adjectival || -ɾe, -ke
 * }
 * adjectival || -ɾe, -ke
 * }
 * }

Morphosyntax
Mawayana has a polysynthetic morphology, mainly head-marking and with suffixes, although there are pronominal prefixes. The verbal arguments are indexed on the verb through subject suffixes on intransitive verbs, while agent prefixes and object suffixes on transitive verbs.

n-kataba-sï

1A-grab.PST-3O

'I grabbed him.'

tõwã-sï

sleep.PST-3S

'He fell asleep.'

nnu a-na mauɗa chika-dza Mawayana

1PN when-1S die NEG-COMPL mawayana

'When I die there will be no Mawayana left at all.'