Wayuunaiki love poem
Nia rouyakai
Tü puyakua>ka sulű tu rouya>ka,
Shia tü anachonsû pütchi ashajushi,
Maa>ya cacuwa pia, amoutasű¡
Niai>chia chiirruajachi "pia tachekaka"
Another version
E'rouyaa
Piyoluja sünain e'rouyaakat
Nia sa'anasia tanüiki
Püshapataa, amoutajaasü
¡Nia süjattia "aisü tapüla"
→ French poem ←
Wayuunaiki language
The Wayúu language (Waiu, Goajiro, Wayúu, Guajiro, Guajira, Uáira, Wayu, Wayú, Wahiro, autonym: Wayuunaiki) is a language of South America, of the North Arawakan family, and from the Maipuran subgroup.
This language is spoken around the Guajira peninsula (in the Caribbean Sea), between Venezuela and Colombia by around 450,000 people.
The name given to this language was first the heteroglotonym Guajiro, today it is more often called by the autoglotonym Wayuunaiki.
Wayúu is closely related to Locono or lokono (arawak) and paraujañú; we can differentiate several dialects, for example those of the north and the south (Arribero and Abajero).
Wayuunaiki, especially in Colombia, is a language that continues to see its number of speakers increase, and this despite an expanding bilingualism.
Historically, as for many other languages, the tradition was oral, and it is with the contact of colonizers that the language has begin to be write with the Latin script.
Guajiro people
The Guajiros (Wayuu, Wahiro, Wayu), are Amerindians who live in the Guajira peninsula, Colombia (Guajira department) and Venezuela (Zulia department), since a border separates this peninsula in two parts.
The Wayuus, probably driven out of the Amazon basin, must have arrived to the Guajira peninsula in the pre-Columbian times; since then they have spread around this peninsula.
If we do not have a very precise date for this migration, their mythology as well as the anthropological and linguistic research, perfectly demonstrate their ancient origin.
They are generally pastoral herders organized in clans, who have preserved many of the cultural traits of other Amazonian peoples, even if in contact with their non-Amazonian neighbors, their acculturation is making great strides.
If the Spaniards never succeeded in subduing the Wayuu, "modernity" will have harmed their territory ...
A massive deforestation, contributed to modify the rainfall in their ancestral land by desertifying it ... Exploitation coal mining will also have transformed the landscape.
Garifuna