The Southern Cariban Languages and the Cariban Family

Abstract

In all existing classifications of the Cariban language family, the southernmost languages—Kuikuro, Arara‐Ikpeng, and Bakairi—have always been assumed to form a single sub‐branch, usually called the “southern branch.” In this paper, we examine this assumption using the comparative method. From eight Cariban languages (the three southern languages plus five others, maximally distant in the family), we compiled 146 cognate sets which were used to find sound correspondences and to propose reconstructions of Proto‐Cariban phonemes on the basis of which shared innovations could be found. The final result is that Bakairi and Arara‐Ikpeng do seem to belong together, but not Kuikuro, which is apparently an independent sub‐branch by itself. When a Swadesh list was used to examine vocabulary retention, we again found that Kuikuro does not seem to be closer to Bakairi and Arara‐Ikpeng than to any other Cariban sub‐branch. In our conclusion, we discuss some consequences for current theories concerning the original homeland of Cariban‐speaking peoples.