Historical interpretations of geographical distributions of Amerind subfamilies

An outline of historical relationships between Amerind language subfamilies inferred from their geographic distributions, with the intent of providing testable hypotheses, is provided. It is contended that the major subfamilies of Amerind are not all independent derivations from Proto-Amerind. In brief, Equatorial and Andean languages are of independent origin in South America, whereas Tucanoan and Macro-Carib are derived from Equatorial, with the latter giving rise to Ge-Pano. Central Amerind and Chibchan are derivatives of Hokan, with Paezan derived from Chibchan. Hokan is a very early derivative of Penutian, as is Almosan at a later interval. Mosan and Keresiouan languages are derived from Almosan.