Tags: Language.
Yao (Jaoi Yaoi Yaio Anacaioury) is an extinct Cariban language of Trinidad and French Guiana attested in a single word list from Laet (1640). It is thought that the Yao people migrated from the Orinoco to the islands perhaps a century earlier after the Kaliña. The name ‘Anacaioury’ is that of a number of chiefs encountered over a century or so.Yao is too poorly attested to classify within Cariban with any confidence though Kaufman links it to the extinct Tiverikoto.