Betoi language

Betoi (Betoy) or Betoi-Jirara is an extinct language of Venezuela, south of the Apure River near the modern border with Columbia. 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 local lingua franca spoken between the Uribante and Sarare rivers and along the Arauca. Enough was recorded for a brief grammatical monograph to be written (Zamponi 2003).

Betoi is generally seen as an isolate, though it has been included in Chibchan-Paezan proposals. Kaufman (2007) included it in Macro-Paesan.

Bibliography

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