Most people outside of Latin America might conceptualize the entire region as Spanish-speaking, and while Spanish is indeed the dominant language across much of the land, it’s far from the only one. In eastern South America, Spanish has a limited presence, with Brazil speaking Portuguese, Guyana speaking English, Suriname speaking Dutch, and French Guiana speaking French. But, of course, these are all imported languages. There are also the hundreds of indigenous languages still spoken in South America today—such as Wapishana.
Found on both sides of the Brazil–Guyana border, squarely in the non-Hispanic section of South America, you’ll find about 13,000 native Wapishana speakers. Since the total ethnic Wapishana population only numbers about 15,000, the language is in relatively good standing, spoken proudly by most Wapishana people. However, the majority of Wapishana people also speak Portuguese or English, sometimes even both, in addition to Wapishana, and younger generations have increasingly drifted away from their ancestral language. Both Brazil and Guyana are actively working to help preserve the language, and we at TranslationServices.com would like to help by offering our Wapishana translation services.
Anyone interested in a free Wapishana translation quote should contact us now!
Want to know a bit more about Wapishana?
Wapishana is one of the biggest indigenous languages in both Brazil and Guyana, hailing predominantly from the Cantá and Bonfim municipalities of Brazil’s Roraima state and Guyana’s southern Rupununi savannahs. It comes from the Arawakan language family, a major language family with a presence in most countries in South America. Wapishana has also undergone significant influence from nearby Pemon, from the Cariban family, another highly numerous South American language family.
Grammatically, Wapishana puts sentences together in a subject-verb-object order, like English. Pronouns come in multiple forms—independent forms that can be used on their own and affix forms that attach to a verb. Subjects are appended as prefixes to the beginning of the verb, whereas objects are added to the end as suffixes. Possession can also get complicated in Wapishana, with “naturally possessed” nouns such as body parts requiring a special “absolute” marker when they’re unpossessed. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some Wapishana nouns are never possessed, such as most animals—a Wapishana speaker must say “my pet chicken” rather than “my chicken.” It can be difficult to translate the various nuances of Wapishana to and from the language, but that’s exactly what the native-speaking translators on our Wapishana translation team are here for.
A diverse Wapishana translation team to cater to your varied translation needs
Whether they hail from Brazil or Guyana, the Wapishana people are proud of their native culture and language, and they’re eager to help clients from all over the world access the pinpoint Wapishana translation services they need for their projects. Our broad coverage of various Wapishana-speaking locales gives us a well-rounded team that represents different Wapishana dialects, full of passionate translators who can translate both to and from Wapishana for a wide variety of projects.
Speaking of the diversity of materials we work with, we’ve done our best to hire Wapishana translators who boast translation competencies in various domains. So, if you need specialty translation in a given area, let us know, and we’ll try to match you with the right Wapishana translator for you. Need academic translation for a journal article, research survey, or lesson materials for Wapishana kids? What about business translation for business proposals, financial reports, white papers, or ad copy? Or perhaps you’re seeking literary translation for a book, poem, short story, game, app, or other type of media? We support all these different types of translation services—just tell us about the specifics of your Wapishana translation needs!
If you send us a message now, you can place your first order for Wapishana translation services.