Language and its complex social uses: bilingualism between the Wayanas and the Aparais (cariban)

Abstract

: In the Guyanese highlands, there are traces of a probable linguistic exogamy that can be detected between the Aparais and the Wayanas. Each of these groups speaks their own languages as well as other languages of neighboring indigenous groups, in addition to the national language of the country where they live. Such linguistic dynamic is partly due to interethnic sociability networks that, for various reasons, led groups to cohabit, forming a larger group within which the distinction between them seems to have been geographic and linguistic. Different testimonies hint that, in the past, these networks of ethnic sociability networks were amalgamated by a linguistic exogamy, persisting even today, but in a flexible way, and also opening these relations beyond the Cariban ethnic sphere. The present study proposes a review of some of these ethnic sociability relationships, with the paternal language as ethnic identity among the Aparais and Wayanas. Some situations of linguistic resilience are discussed.