World Language Map

Arawakan languages map

45 Arawakan languages are on the map, most of them in Brazil, Peru and Colombia. It divides into 6 main branches, the largest being Southern Maipuran (22 languages). The best-known members include Wayuu, Garifuna and Asháninka. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Arawakan family at a glance

  • 45languages
  • 34drawn as areas
  • 11shown as points
  • 6main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Arawakan alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Arawakan languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Wayuu spoken? (about 300,000 speakers)
  2. Where is Garifuna spoken? (about 190,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Asháninka spoken? (about 74,000 speakers)
  4. Where is Terena-Kinikinao-Chane spoken? (about 16,000 speakers)
  5. Where is Wapishana spoken? (about 13,000 speakers)
  6. Where is Ashéninka Pajonal spoken? (about 9,881 speakers)
  7. Where is Nomatsiguenga spoken? (about 6,500 speakers)
  8. Where is Piapoco spoken? (about 6,400 speakers)
  9. Where is Machiguenga spoken? (about 6,200 speakers)
  10. Where is Yine spoken? (about 5,000 speakers)

Branches of Arawakan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Southern Maipuran (22)
  • Japura-Colombia (9)
  • Central-Eastern Maipuran (6)
  • Caribbean Arawakan (4)
  • Negro-Roraima (3)
  • Alto Orinoco (1)

Where Arawakan languages are spoken

Countries with the most Arawakan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 45 Arawakan languages, A to Z

Questions about Arawakan languages

How many Arawakan languages are there?

45 living Arawakan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 6 main branches, the biggest being Southern Maipuran (22 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Arawakan languages spoken?

Brazil (21), Peru (18), Colombia (10), Venezuela (8), Bolivia (5) and Guyana (4) have the most Arawakan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Arawakan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Wayuu (about 300,000), Garifuna (about 190,000) and Asháninka (about 74,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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