Panare language

Panare is a Cariban language, spoken by the Panare, who number 3,000–4,000 and live in Bolivar State in southern Venezuela. Their main area is South of the town of Caicara del Orinoco, south of the Orinoco River. There are several subdialects of the language. The autonym for this language and people is e'ñepá, which has various senses depending on context, including 'people', 'indigenous-people', and 'Panare-people'. The term "Panare" itself is a Tupí word that means "friend." It is unusual in having object–verb–agent as one of its main word orders, the other being the more common verb–agent–object. It also displays the typologically "uncommon" property of an ergative–absolutive alignment in the present and a nominative–accusative alignment in the past.