Mataco-Guaikuru

Mataco–Guaicuru is a proposed language family of the Gran Chaco, spanning northern Argentina, western Paraguay, south-eastern Bolivia and the Mato Grosso do Sul corner of Brazil, uniting the Mataguayan languages Wichí, Chorote, Nivaclé and Maká with the Guaicuruan group, alongside the Guachi and Payagua isolates. The kinship was argued in detail by Pedro Viegas Barros, and shared words with Arawakan and Tupian neighbours place the proto-language in the upper Paraguay basin.

The two branches lived the Chaco very differently: Guaicuruan bands were nomadic warriors who, after the Spanish founded Asunción in 1537, took up horses and became frontier raiders, while Matacoan villagers settled along the rivers and lived by fishing, gathering and small-scale farming.