This is not as straightforward as it seems, since most of the Amazonian natives have been forcibly moved away from their original homelands and more remote tribes have been moved into the Amazon area. Many tribes have become extinct, many native languages are no longer spoken and the number of mixed-race natives has increased dramatically.Originally, the native American populations along the Amazon spoke languages belonging to the Tupi-Guarani, Arawak and Carib language families. It is thought that tribes speaking Macro-Gê languages were driven out of the Amazon region into the Brazilian highlands shortly before contact with Europeans.The most widely distributed of Amazonian language families, Arawakan, includes 74 languages divided into several subgroups including:AruanGuahiboHarakmbutMaipuranThese branches are estimated to have split from their proto-Arawakan parent between 4,500 and 2,500 years ago. Many Arawakan languages are now extinct, but a few survive in the former heartland region of the Amazon-Orinoco. Maipuran, once centred in the western Amazon region, by about 3,000 years ago had spread throughout the Caribbean Antilles.