- Sanumá language
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Sanumá Spoken in Venezuela, Brazil Native speakers 5,074 (date missing) Language family Yanomam- Sanumá
Language codes ISO 639-3 xsu Sanumá is a Yanomam language spoken in Venezuela and Brazil. It is also known as Sanema, Sanima, Tsanuma, Guaika, Samatari, Samatali, Xamatari and Chirichano. Most of its speakers in Venezuela also speak Ye'kuana, also known as Maquiritare, a tribal group the Sanumá live alongside in the Caura River basin. Some linguists identify dialects such as Yanoma, Cobari, Caura and Ervato-Ventuari in Venezuela and Auaris in Brazil. All the dialects are mutually intelligible. In Venezuela, Sanumá is spoken in the vicinity of the Caura and Ervato-Ventuari Rivers in Venezuela, and the Auaris river and Roraima region in Brazil.
Sanumá is an isolating language.
Further reading
- Alcida Ramos, Sanuma Memories: Yanomami Ethnography in Times of Crisis (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995)
- Bruce Parry,Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World (Michael Joseph Ltd, 2007)
Categories:- Language articles with undated speaker data
- Yanomaman languages
- Indigenous languages of the Americas stubs
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