Piaroa–Saliban languages
language family
The Piaroa–Saliban, also known as Saliban (Spanish: Sálivan), are a small language family of the middle Orinoco Basin, which forms an independent island within an area of Venezuela and Colombia (northern llanos) dominated by peoples of Carib and Arawakan affiliation.
Languages
Piaroa and Wirö (or "Maco") form a Piaroan branch of the family.
The extinct Ature language, once spoken on the Orinoco River near the waterfalls of Atures, Venezuela, is unattested but was said to be 'little different' from Saliba, and so may have formed a Saliban branch of the family.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Andoke–Urekena, Arawak, Máku, Tukano, and Yaruro language families due to contact.
Lozano (2014:212) has also noted similarities between the Saliba-Hodi and Arawakan languages.
External relations
Zamponi (2017) notes resemblances between the extinct Betoi language and Piaroa–Saliban. He considers a genealogical relationship plausible, though data on Betoi is scarce.
There are lexical similarities with the Hotï language (Jodï), and this has been interpreted as evidence for a Jodï–Saliban language family. However, the similarities have also been explained as contact.
Jolkesky (2009) includes Piaroa-Saliba, Betoi and Hodi in a Duho family along with Ticuna–Yuri.
“Piaroa–Saliban languages” enters the record as language family. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Piaroa, Saliban and languages can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q269032. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2014, 2017 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Piaroa–Saliban languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.