Piapoco
Cháse
Native toColombia, Venezuela
Native speakers
6,400 (2001–2007)[1]
Arawakan
Language codes
ISO 639-3pio
Glottologpiap1246  Piapoco
pona1251  Ponares – undemonstrated
ELPPiapoco

Piapoco is an Arawakan language of Colombia and Venezuela.

A "Ponares" language is inferred from surnames, and may have been Piapoco or Achagua.

History

Piapoco is a branch of the Arawak language, which also includes Achagua and Tariana.[2] Piapoco is considered a Northern Arawak language.[3] There are only about 3,000 Piapoco speakers left today. These people live in the Meta, Vichada, and Guaviare rivers in Colombia[4] Piapoco speakers also reside in Venezuela.[5] It is an endangered language.[5]

Geography/Background

The Piapocos come from the larger tribe, the Piaroa, who are indigenous to the Amazon rain forest.[6] The Piapoco people originally lived in the midsection of Rio Guaviare, later moving in the 18th century to avoid settlers, missionaries, and others.[7]

Grammar

A Piapoco-Spanish dictionary containing 2,500 words was written by Deloris Klumpp, in which botanical identification of plants were captured, although not all.[3] The Piapoco language follows the following grammatical rules: plural suffix -nai used for animates only, derivational suffixes masculine -iri, feminine -tua, suffix -mi 'late, defunct,' nominalizing -si, declarative mood marker -ka.[3] Piapoco is unique in that it seems to be a nominative-accusative language.[3] There are eighteen segmental phonemes, fourteen consonant and four vowels in the Piapoco language.[8]

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Stop voiceless p t k
voiced b d
Affricate ts
Fricative s̪ ~ θ h
Trill r
Approximant w l j
  • /s̪/ can be pronounced as [θ] among speakers who have had less contact with Spanish speakers.
  • /k/ can be palatalized as [kʲ] when after /i/, before another vowel.
  • /ts/ can be pronounced as [tʃ] in free variation among different speakers.
  • /w/ is pronounced as [β] when preceding front vowels.

Vowels

Front Back
High i u
Low e a

Vowels can be nasalized [ã] when occurring before nasal consonants.[9]

Bilingualism

The word Piapoco is a Spanish nickname in reference to the toucan.[4] Most Piapoco also speak Spanish.[7] Speakers who have had less contact with Spanish speakers more often pronounce the phoneme "s" as a voiceless interdental fricative.[8] Younger speakers of the Piapoco language tend to eliminate the "h" more than older speakers due to their contact with the Spanish language.[8]

When a large portion of people come in contact with another language and are competent in it, their language gradually becomes more like the other.[10] This allows for a gradual convergence, where grammar and semantics of one language begin to replicate the other.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Piapoco at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Seifart, F (2012). "Causative Marking in Resígaro (Arawakan): A Descriptive and Comparative Perspective". International Journal of American Linguistics. 78 (3): 369–384. doi:10.1086/665917. S2CID 144865690.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (1 January 1998). "Review of Vocabulario Piapoco-Español, ; Bosquejo del Macuna: Aspectos de la cultura material de los macunas--Fonología; Gramática, , , ; Gramática Pedagógica del Cuiba-Wámonae: Lengua indígena de la familia lingüística guahiba de los llanos orientales". International Journal of American Linguistics. 64 (2): 168–173. doi:10.1086/466355. JSTOR 1265983.
  4. 1 2 Klumpp, James; Burquest, Donald A. (1 January 1983). "Relative Clauses in Piapoco". International Journal of American Linguistics. 49 (4): 388–399. doi:10.1086/465801. JSTOR 1265211. S2CID 144582996.
  5. 1 2 "Did you know Piapoco is threatened?". Endangered Languages.
  6. ↑ Piapoco Indians. (n.d.). Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://www.indian-cultures.com/cultures/piapoco-indians/ Archived 2019-02-26 at the Wayback Machine
  7. 1 2 Flowers, N. M. (n.d.). Piapoco. Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://www.everyculture.com/South-America/Piapoco.html
  8. 1 2 3 Klumpp, D. (1990). Piapoco Grammar. 1-136. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/18810.
  9. ↑ Klumpp, Deloris A.; Hollenbach, Barbara E. (2019). A Grammar of Piapoco. SIL International.
  10. 1 2 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (1 January 2003). "Mechanisms of Change in Areal Diffusion: New Morphology and Language Contact". Journal of Linguistics. 39 (1): 1–29. doi:10.1017/s0022226702001937. JSTOR 4176787.
  • Klumpp, Deloris A. (2019). Hollenbach, Barbara E. (ed.). A Grammar of Piapoco. SIL eBook 71. SIL International.


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