Tags: Language.
Garifuna (Karif) is a member of the Arawakan language family albeit an atypical one since 1) it is spoken outside of the Arawakan language area which is confined to the northern parts of South America and 2) because it contains an unusually high number of loanwords from both Carib and a number of European languages attesting to an extremely tumultuous past involving warfare migration and colonization. The language was once confined to the Antillean island of St.