Emerillon is spoken by a small community residing in two areas of French Guiana: The Maroni River and the Oyapock-Camopi confluence.
Upon the arrival of major world powers, first by Spain in 1496, The native people in what is now French Guiana were first impressed upon by foreign influence.
When the French settled and colonized the territory in the 1600s, the Emerillon began to borrow words and speech patterns.
Several of the studies on the Teko people pre-1970 offer the idea that the population had descended to a mere 50 native Emerillon speakers.
The most recent census recording of the Teko population however find that there are at least 400 native speakers of Emerillon in French Guiana.
In fact, the Teko people suffered the second highest loss in population of all the Tupi tribes, depopulating at a rate of 88% since then.
[9] Much of the depopulation of the Teko people and neighboring tribes is due to deadly epidemics such as influenza and malaria, causing as much as an 88% decrease in the population rate since the turn of the 19th century.
[9] The foreign settlers in the area, namely the French, also incited warfare between the native tribes, resulting in further deaths.
The Teko people place great importance on natural resources and a culture based upon the Earth around them, and this is evident in their mythology and storytelling.
One such story describes the tale of a worm that visits an Emerillon woman, falls in love with her, and becomes a man in order to woo her.
They plant some of their crops, and when the worm man tells his lover to go and look for more of the resources that they have grown, she is afraid to search and does not go immediately.
Furthermore, this brief summarization of the Emerillon folk tale shows the emphasis on the importance of hard work and a strong relationship with the Earth and its resources.
[8] Both groups communicate with each other, and on rare occasions with neighboring tribes such as the Wayampi, whose language is understood by the Emerillon.
Emerillon does not have any known dialects, although several alternate names for the language exist: Emerilon, Emerion, Mero, Melejo, Mereyo, and Teco.
Considering the SOV syntax format of the language, this means that a potent phrase will increase in pitch until the verb, where the major accent is found.
[3] The language also has signs of polysynthesis, and therefore often utilizes the combination of many morphemes and suffixes to create a single word or expression.