Multilingual and Monolingual Placenames in Tariana

Abstract

Tariana is the only Arawak language spoken in the linguistic area of the Vaupes River basin of Amazonia, along with a number of East Tucanoan languages. The Tariana people are thought to be the most recent arrivals in the region. The indigenous inhabitants of the area are obligatorily multilingual because of linguistic exogamy. Tariana placenames are divided into three groups: (a) names of places where Tariana have lived recently, or still live, (b) names of historical places associated with original living sites and migrations of the Tariana, and (c) names of places associated with the mythic ancestors of the Tariana. Only names in the first group enter into multilingual sets; these are calque translations involving East Tucanoan languages of the area. Tariana placenames of the other two groups are monolingual, and often have archaic linguistic traits, confirming that obligatory multilingualism among Tariana is of relatively recent origin.