Arawakan languages, most widespread of all Indigenous South American language groups. Before the Spanish conquest, Arawakan languages were spoken in a number of disconnected areas from what is now Cuba and the Bahamas southward to the present Gran Chaco and the sources of the Xingu River in southern Brazil, and from the mouth of the Amazon River to the eastern foothills of the Andes. A great many communities still speak Arawakan languages in Brazil, and other groups of speakers are found in Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname. Taino, a now-extinct Arawakan language, once predominated in the Antilles and was the first Indigenous American language to be encountered by Europeans. Spoken languages of importance are Goajiro in Colombia, Campa and Machiguenga in Peru, and Mojo and Bauré in Bolivia.