Maipure (Maypure, Mejepure), was a language once spoken along the Ventuari, Sipapo, and Autana rivers of Amazonas and, as a lingua franca, in the Upper Orinoco region. It became extinct around the end of the eighteenth century. Zamponi provided a grammatical sketch of the language and furnished a classified word list, based on all of its extant eighteenth century material (mainly from the Italian missionary Filippo S. Gilij).^[1] It is historically important in that it formed the cornerstone of the recognition of the Maipurean (Arawakan) language family.^{[citation needed]}

Kaufman (1994) gives its closest relatives as Yavitero and other languages of the Orinoco branch of Upper Amazon Arawakan. Aikhenvald places it instead in the Western Nawiki branch.^[2]