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Betoi
Jirara
Native to	Colombia
Region	OrinocoLlanos
Ethnicity	394Betoi [es] (2005), Jirara
Extinct	mid 19th century
Language family	Duho ? Hodï–Saliban ? Betoi–Saliban ? Betoi
Early form	Proto-Betoi-Jirara
Dialects	Situfa Airico Lolaca Jirara Betoi Ele
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	qtd
Glottolog	beto1236
Map of the Betoi language

Betoi (Betoy) orBetoi-Jirara is an extinct language ofColombia andVenezuela, south of theApure River near the modern border with Colombia. The names Betoi and Jirara are those of two of its peoples/dialects; the language proper has no known name. At contact, Betoi was a locallingua franca spoken between theUribante andSarare rivers and along theArauca. Enough was recorded for a brief grammatical monograph to be written.^[1]

Betoi is generally seen as an isolate, though Kaufman (2007) included it inMacro-Paesan.

Zamponi (2017) finds enough lexical resemblances between Betoi and theSaliban languages to conclude that a genealogical relationship is plausible.^[2]

Historically, Betoi was considered aTucanoan language, hence the original nameBetoyan for the family.^[3]

Historically a dialect cluster, varieties include Betoi, Jirara, Situfa, Ayrico, Ele, Lucalia, Jabúe, Arauca, Quilifay, Anabali, Lolaca, and Atabaca.^[4]

Below is a full list of Betoi varieties listed byLoukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties.^[5]

• Betoi /Guanero /Isabaco - extinct language once spoken on theCasanare River,Cravo Norte River, andApure River, Arauca territory, Colombia.
• Situfa /Cituja - extinct language once spoken on theCasanare River in the Arauca region.
• Airico - once spoken at the sources of theManacacías River. (Gumilla 1745, pt. 2, pp. 243-247, only a few words.)
• Jirara - spoken once in the upperManacacías River region. (Gumilla 1745, pt. 1, pp. 201 and 203, pt. 2, pp. 16 and 328, only a few words and phrases.)
• Atabaca - once spoken in the upperManacacías River region. (Gumilla 1745, pt. 2, p. 274, only a few words.)
• Lolaca - once spoken on the confluence of theArauca River andChitagá River. (Unattested.)
• Quilifay - once spoken around the confluence of theArauca River andChitagá River. (Unattested.)
• Anabali - spoken south of the Atabaca tribe around the confluence of theArauca River andChitagá River. (Unattested.)
• Ele - spoken on theEle River. (Unattested.)

Glottolog groups Betoi dialects as follows:^[6]

1. [kʷ] may be present in the wordscuivivì 'duck' andquaja 'forest'. It is also present in the nearbySaliban languages andTunebo (Uwa).

Betoi appears to have a 5-vowel system, as illustrated below.^[1]

[i] was written as⟨y⟩ as a part of diphthongs.^[7]

Lexicon of Betoi compiled by Zamponi (2003) from various sources:^[1]

Wiktionary has a word list atAppendix:Betoi word list

• Fabre, Alain (2005).Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: BETOI(PDF).
• Zamponi, Raoul (2003).Betoi(PDF). 428. Vol. Languages of the World/Materials. Lincom. p. 66.ISBN 3-89586-757-8.

• Language isolates of South America
• Extinct languages of South America
• Languages extinct in the 19th century
• Languages of Venezuela
• Macro-Paesan languages

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