Guató () is a language isolate spoken by two of the Guató people of Brazil. It has variously been claimed to be of Macro-Jê or isolate affiliation. Guató is a VSO language, has agglutination, and has ergative alignment.
Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the Macro-Jê languages, but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro. Martins (2011) also suggests a relationship with Macro-Jê. Nikulin (2020) excludes this possibility.
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Bororo, Tupi, and Karib language families due to contact.
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) found lexical similarities between Guató and the Zamucoan languages. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing, genetic inheritance, or chance resemblances.
Today, Guató is spoken in Guató Indigenous Territory and BaÃÂa dos Guató Indigenous Territory.
Loukotka (1968) reported that in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, Guató is spoken on the banks of the Paraguay River and up the São Lourenço River, along the Bolivian border. It is also spoken at Uberaba Lake in Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia).
The Guató vowel system, like that of Macro-Jê languages, collapses a three-way distinction of height in oral vowels to two in nasal vowels.
Guató is a tonal language, possessing a high and low tone.
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Guató.
For more extensive vocabulary lists of Guató by Palácio (1984) and Postigo (2009), see the corresponding .
Guató uses a quinary (base-5) system up to 20, where a decimal system is used for large numbers.