Muran languages

Muran
Ethnicity:	Mura people
Geographic distribution:	Amazon
Linguistic classification:	Macro-Warpean ? Mura–Matanawi Muran
Subdivisions:	—

Muran is a small language family of Amazonas, Brazil.

Family division

Muran consists of 4 languages:

1. Mura †
2. Pirahã (aka Pirahá, Pirahán)
3. Bohurá †
4. Yahahí †

Most Muran languages, which were spoken by few people, have died out due to the recent expansion of Brazilian Portuguese. Mura, Bohurá, and Yahahí are now extinct, and little linguistic work was done on them before extinction. Pirahã, the one surviving Muran language, is now spoken by only 300 people in eight villages.

Linguistically, the Muran family is typified by agglutinativity, a very small number of phonemes (11 compared to over 40 in English), and the use of tones.

Genealogical relations

Muran is often proposed to be related to Matanawí. Kaufman (1994) also suggests a connection with Huarpe (in his Macro-Warpean proposal).

See also

• Endangered language
• Extinct language
• Pirahã language

External links

• PROEL: Grupo Muran
• Ethnologue: Pirahã

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.