Piaroa language
Appearance
Piaroa | |
---|---|
De'aruwa | |
Native to | Colombia and Venezuela |
Ethnicity | Piaroa people |
Native speakers | 17,000 (2001–2002)[1] |
Piaroa–Saliban
| |
Dialects |
|
Latin | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Either:pid – Piaroawpc – Wirö (Maco) |
Glottolog | maco1238 Wirö + Piaroapiar1243 Piaroa |
ELP | Piaroa |
Piaroa (also called Guagua ~ Kuakua ~ Quaqua, Adole ~ Ature, Wo’tiheh) is an indigenous language of Colombia and Venezuela, native to the Piaroa people.
A Wirö language (commonly called Maco) is sometimes listed separately, or left unclassified. It is very poorly attested, but the few words which are known are enough to show it is a dialect of Piaroa, or at least very closely related (Hammarström 2010).[2]
Phonology
Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
nor. | lab. | ||||||||
Stop | Plain | p | t | t͡ʃ~t͡s | k | kʷ | ʔ | ||
Ejective | pʼ | tʼ | kʼ | ||||||
Aspirated | |||||||||
Voiced | |||||||||
Affricate | Plain | ||||||||
Ejective | |||||||||
Fricative | s | ʃ | |||||||
Lateral/Flap | |||||||||
Nasal | Plain | m | n | ||||||
Glottal | ˀm | ˀn | |||||||
Approximant | Plain | w | l | j | |||||
Glottal | ˀw | ˀl | ˀj |
Front | Nasal | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | o | ||
Open-mid | e | ||
Open | a | ã |
References
- ^ Piaroa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Wirö (Maco) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Harald Hammarström, 2010, 'The status of the least documented language families in the world'. In Language Documentation & Conservation, v 4, p 183 [1]