Arawak (Arowak, Aruák), also known as Lokono (Lokono Dian, literally "people's talk" by its speakers), is an Arawakan language spoken by the Lokono (Arawak) people of South America in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.^[2] It is the eponymous language of the Arawakan language family.

Lokono is an active–stative language.^[3]

Lokono is a critically endangered language.^[4] The Lokono language is most commonly spoken in South America. Some specific countries where this language is spoken include Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Venezuela.^[5] The percentage of living fluent speakers with active knowledge of the language is estimated to be 5% of the ethnic population.^[6] There are small communities of semi-speakers who have varying degrees of comprehension and fluency in Lokono that keep the language alive.^[7] It is estimated that there are around 2,500 remaining speakers (including fluent and semi-fluent speakers).^[8] The decline in the use of Lokono as a language of communication is due to its lack of transmission from older speakers to the next generation. The language is not being passed to young children, as they are taught to speak the official languages of their countries.^[4]

The Lokono language is part of the larger Arawakan language family spoken by indigenous people in South and Central America along with the Caribbean.^[9] The family spans four countries of Central America — Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua — and eight of South America — Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Brazil (and also formerly Argentina and Paraguay). With about 40 extant languages, it is the largest language family in Latin America.^[10]

Lokono is an Arawakan language most commonly found to be spoken in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It was also formerly spoken on Caribbean islands such as Barbados and other neighboring countries. There are approximately 2,500 native speakers today. The following are regions where Arawak has been found spoken by native speakers.^[1]

The personal pronouns are shown below. The forms on the left are free forms, which can stand alone. The forms on the right are bound forms (prefixes), which must be attached to the front of a verb, a noun, or a postposition.^[16]

The Arawak language system has an alphabetical system similar to the Roman Alphabet with some minor changes and new additions to letters.

The letters in brackets under each alphabetical letter is the IPA symbol for each letter.^[1]

^[18]