The current population is 2,009 (PWA, 2018),[2] and they have 19 villages spread along the rivers of Camanau/Curiau, Alalaii, Jauaperi, and Rio Branquinho.

[2] The language has many other names such as, Atroahy, Atroahí, Atroarí, Atroaí, Atrowari, Atruahi, Atruahí, Ki'nya, Krishaná, Waimirí, Waimirí-atroarí, Yawaperí (Glottolog).

[2] First contact with the Waimiri Atroari occurred in the 17th century with the Spanish and Portuguese crown spreading to gain more territory (Do Vale).

At this point in time the Waimiri Atroari already had a reputation for being violent and Rodrigues sought to change the stereotypes associated with the group (Do Vale).

This led to many acts of violence between the Waimiri Atroari and non-indigenous people, with military forces used to combat the indigenous group and wiping out entire villages (Do Vale).

[2] The next large scale conflict with the Waimiri Atroari that has been documented is in the 1960s with the Amazonas State and Roraima Territory Government's plan for a highway between Manaus and Caracarai, cutting directly through indigenous land (Do Vale).

[2] This project brought in individuals and teams to "pacify" the Waimiri Atroari as well as Military forces to build the highway and intimidate the indigenous people (Do Vale).

[2] As a result of high tension and disagreements most of the non-indigenous pacifists were killed by the Waimiri Atroari (Do Vale).

[2] In 1971 the Waimiri Atroari Indigenous Reservation was created, however between plans for Amazonas expansion and the discovery of cassiterite deposits, the government continued to infringe on the land (Do Vale).

[2] The reserve was demoted to a Temporary Restricted Area for the Attraction and Pacification of the Waimiri Atroari Indians in 1981 in order to exclude the mineral deposits from their land (Do Vale).

Today the Waimiri Atroari have their own school system which they control independently (Do Vale).

[2] Waimiri Atroari belongs to the Carib language family, which is centralized in Northern South America.

The Carib languages in northern Brazil are fairly similar, while Waimiri-Atroari is rather different (Moore, 2006, 119).

[6] Carib can be categorized into three groups: Northwest Amazon, Guiana area and Upper Xingu Basin.

[7] João Barbosa Rodrigues’ wordlist seems to be the first to document the language in 1885 and he refers to the people as "Crichanas".

[8] A year after, in 1986, another missionary couple from the Evangelical Mission of the Amazonian (MEVA), created a more accurate orthography.

[11] Then, in 2008 and 2009, she further analyzed the syntactic features of case-marking; phrase structure, clauses and word order.

Most recently, she explored the value of linguistic analysis to better language revitalization by analyzing the syllable structure in the orthography and formal education of Waimiri-Atroari (2010).

Waimiri Atroari also has documentation of adverbs, postpositions, particles and case markings.

[16] Bruno states that pronouns can take both subject and object positions in Waimiri Atroari.

[29] mymo’Thatmarehe ramsieve-2PARTabremyhsaroundmymo’ {marehe ram} abremyhsaThat sieve-2PART round'That sieve is round’mykyThatram2PARTtabe’acapybaramo’oTherekaEVIDsamkahammockmyky ram tabe’a mo’o ka samkaThat 2PART capybara There EVID hammock'That is a capybara' 'There, is the hammock.

'Waimiri Atroari is  what Gildea (1998)[31] classifies to as an Inverse Split system-S. Characteristics of this language system include A and O nominals having no case marking, a lack of auxiliaries and personal prefix set as well as the collective number suffixes.

[32] In Inverse Split System-s, also referred to as Set I systems the OV unit may either precede or follow the A, in Wamiri Atroari the order is AOV.

'*[tahkomeeldersram2PARTi-inɨ-pia]REL-eat-IMM.PASTIrikwaIrikwa*[tahkome ram i-inɨ-pia] Irikwaelders 2PART REL-eat-IMM.PAST IrikwaIn OSV contexts the object may move independently to subject position rather than the Verb-Phrase preceding the Noun-Phrase through the process of topicalization in which its components cannot be separated.

The following table provided by Bruno[35] illustrates how case is marked in Waimiri Atroari as well as the hierarchy present in the language.

[16] wahamanyxibafishwaha xibamany fish'many fish'xibafishwahamanyxiba wahafish many'many fish'kinjapeoplewytymeatipo-pianylook.for-REC.PASTwapymanykinja wyty ipo-piany wapypeople meat look.for-REC.PAST many'People hunted a lot.