Baniwa of Guainía
Arawakan language spoken in Brazil and Venezuela
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Baniwa of Guainía, or Baniwa of Maroa, is an Arawakan language of Brazil and of Maroa Municipality in Venezuela, spoken near the Guainia River. It is one of several languages which go by the generic name Baniwa/Baniva. One of its primary dialects is Warekena (Guarequena), or more precisely Warekena of Xié.
-
Northern
- Upper Amazon
- Orinoco
- Baniwa of Guainía–Yavitero
- Baniwa of Guainía
- Baniwa of Guainía–Yavitero
- Orinoco
- Upper Amazon
- Warekena do rio Xié
| Baniwa of Guainía | |
|---|---|
| Baniwa of Maroa | |
| Native to | Brazil, Venezuela |
Native speakers | (c. 210 cited 1999)[1] |
Arawakan
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | gae [a] |
| Glottolog | guar1293 |
| ELP | Guarequena |
 | |
 Warekena is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
History
Baniwa of Guainia only recently appeared on the Xie River, displacing the original, or "old" Warekena language. Beginning in the early 20th century, most of the Warekena people migrated into Venezuela from the Xie River in Brazil. They then switched to a dialect of the Baniwa language of Guainía, but preserved their name and the history of their origins. A number of Baniwa of Guainía-speaking Warekena then moved back to the Xie River in the 1920s.[2]
Classification
Baniwa of Guainía is classified by Alexandra Aikhenvald (1998) as a member of the Içana-Vaupes subgroup of Northern Arawakan, and is closest linguisticaly to Mandawaca, whereas Baniwa of Guainia is closer to Yavitero and Maipure. The two of them are only distantly related to each other and hardly intelligible with one another.[2] Terrence Kaufman (1994) classified it in a Warekena group of Western Nawiki Upper Amazonian,[3] Aikhenvald (1999) in Eastern Nawiki.[1]
Phonology
Consonants
Equivalents in the Baniwa of Guainía practical orthography are given below.[4]
Unlike its relatives Baré and Baniwa of Içana, Baniwa of Guainía lacks aspirated stops. /g/ is rare and "very unusual" for a Northern Arawakan language.[2]
Vowels
/u/ has an allophone of [o],[4] commonly encountered in rapid speech and also appearing in a number of loanwords. /a/ may also be reduced to [ə] word-finally in syllables after a stressed syllable. Vowel length is phonemic, though has a low functional load, and long vowels are frequently shortened when the stress is shifted in phrases.[2]
Morphology
Nouns
Pronouns
Personal pronouns in Baniwa of Guainia are formed by adding an emphatic suffix -ya to the cross-referencing personal prefixes.[2]
Syntax
Unmarked constituent order is AVO, VSo, SaV, or SioV.[2]
wa-hã
then-PAUS
waʃi
jaguar
yutʃia-hã
kill-PAUS
ema
tapir
"Then the jaguar killed the tapir"
ʃupe-hẽ
many-PAUS
ʃiani-pe
child-PL
"Children are many"
peya
one
nu-yaɺitua
1sg-brother
wiyua
die
"One of my brothers dies"
nu-yue
1sg-for
mawali
hungry
"I am hungry"
Indirect objects tend to be placed immediately after the predicate.
Notes
- also applies to Warekena Velha