Carabayo

Facts

  • Language: Carabayo
  • Alternate names: Amazonas Macusa (pejorative)
  • Language code: cby
  • Language family: Unclassified (SIL classification)
  • Number of speakers: Uncertain
  • Vulnerability: Dormant
  • Script:

More information:

    “Macusa” or “Macú”, savage, is arbitrarily applied to uncontacted groups.

    In the remote upper River Puré and River Bernardo region in the Colombian Amazon rainforest. The name Carabayo derives from the (mock) name “Bernardo Caraballo”, which was given to a Carabayo man by local people during a brief encounter in the Colombian town La Pedrera (Bernardo Caraballo was the name of a Colombian boxing champion). Subsequently the Carabayo people and their language have been referred to as Caraballo. The 2013 Ethnologue language catalogue introduced Carabayo as an English version of the language name, and assigned the ISO 639-3 code cby to it.Seifart and Alvaro Echeverri (2014) demonstrated that it is closely related to Yurí and Tikuna (Tikuna-Yurí family).