public_comment: "Some consider Tunayana a dialect of Waiwai, for example Ethnologue (2016). ",
private_comment: null,
source_id: null,
speakers: [
{
id:30533,
code_id:10467,
speaker_number: "1-9",
speaker_number_text: "<10",
second_language_speakers: "",
semi_speakers: "",
children: "",
young_adults: "",
older_adults: "",
elders: "",
ethnic_population: "~80",
date_of_info: "",
public_comment: "The Tunayana are mixed with Waiwai. In the 1960s, missionaries, who had been active among the Waiwai in neighboring Guyana, came to evangelize the Surinamese American Indians of the interior. They brought with them a few Waiwai, as well as Mawayana and Tunayana who had been living among the Waiwai, and whose task it was to learn Trio in order to convert them. The Tunayana and Mawayana have remained in Suriname and now speak Trio as their first language. There are only about 10 elderly speakers of Tunayana out of an ethnic group of about 80–90.",