Zaparoan tongues were once widely spoken in the rain forest of north-eastern Peru, but Zaparoan-speaking people have been decimated by diseases, wars with neighboring native groups, and by quasi-enslavement during the rubber boom.

Most Zaparoan communities have shifted to Lamas Quechua or Spanish, while others have been incorporated into Shuar groups.

Kichwa has been the default language for native communities in the area since the rubber boom era, and has spread through trade mixed marriages.

El Nuevo Testamento en Arabela del Perú, 2da ed.

A small group, called Pananuyuri, separated from other Arabelas roughly a century ago.

[citation needed] The Arabela phonemic inventory is quite typical for a Zaparoan language.

A number of other words form their plural by removing a singular specific suffix: Arabela has a complex pronominal system, similar to those of other Zaparoan languages and distinguishes between active and passive personal pronouns.