Wayoró (also Wayoro, Ajurú, Wajuru; Wayoró: wayoro emẽto ) is a moribund Tuparian language (Tupian family), which is spoken in the state of Rondônia, in the Amazon region of Brazil. As of 2019, there were reported to be 3 speakers (all above 70 years old) and 11 semispeakers out of the ethnic population of approximately 250.
The Wajuru people is subdivided into three subgroups: the Ngwayoroiat (âÂÂthose from the StoneâÂÂ), the Ngwãkà ©yãian (âÂÂthe Agouti onesâÂÂ), and the Kupndiiriat (âÂÂthe Forest onesâÂÂ). Some lexical and phonological differences have been reported between the varieties spoken by the Ngwayoroiat (Wayoroiat) and by the Kupndiiriat.
The graphemes which correspond to each phoneme are given in .
Underlying nasal consonants may be partially or fully oralized in oral environments. Nogueira (2019) describes the following allophones:
As in other Tuparian languages, the main clauses of Wayoró follow the cross-linguistically rare nominativeâÂÂabsolutive pattern. Person prefixes on the verb are absolutive, i.e., they index the sole argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the patient argument ('direct object') of a transitive verb (P). Person pronouns, which follow the verb (either cliticizing to it or not) are nominative: they may encode the sole argument of an intransitive verb (S) or the agent argument of a transitive verb (A), but not the patient of a transitive verb (P). This is exemplified below.
<section begin="list-of-glossing-abbreviations" /><div style="display:none;"> V:verb S:sole argument of an intransitive verb P:patient argument of a transitive verb A:agent argument of a transitive verb TH:thematic vowel:thematic vowel PL:pluractionality:pluractionality </div><section end="list-of-glossing-abbreviations" />