Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the Macro-Jê languages, but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro.

[3] Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Bororo, Tupi, and Karib language families due to contact.

[4] An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[5] found lexical similarities between Guató and the Zamucoan languages.

However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing, genetic inheritance, or chance resemblances.

[2] For more extensive vocabulary lists of Guató by Palácio (1984)[7][9] and Postigo (2009),[8] see the corresponding Portuguese article.