Yaminawa language

Yaminawa (Yaminahua) is a Panoan language of western Amazonia. It is spoken by the Yaminawá and some related peoples.

"Yora language" redirects here. For the Australian languages named Yor, see Yuin–Kuric languages.

Yaminawa
Yaminahua
Native to	Peru, Bolivia, Brazil
Ethnicity	Yaminawá and related peoples
Native speakers	2,729 (2006–2011)[1] Est. 400 uncontacted speakers of Yora (2007)
Language family	Panoan Mainline Panoan Nawa Headwaters Yaminawa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: yaa – Yaminawa ywn – Yawanawá mcd – Sharanawa swo – Shaninawa mts – Yora
Glottolog	yami1255[2]

Yaminawa constitutes an extensive dialect cluster. Attested dialects are two or more Brazilian Yaminawa dialects, Peruvian Yaminawa, Chaninawa, Chitonawa, Mastanawa, Parkenawa (= Yora or "Nawa"), Shanenawa (Xaninaua, = Katukina de Feijó), Sharanawa (= Marinawa), Shawannawa (= Arara), Yawanawá, Yaminawa-arara (obsolescent; very similar to Shawannawa/Arara), Nehanawa^†).[3]

Very few Yaminawá speak Spanish or Portuguese, though the Shanenawa have mostly shifted to Portuguese.[4]

Phonology

The vowels of Yaminawa are /a, i, ɨ, u/. Yaminawa has /ɯ/ instead of /u/. Sharanawa, Yaminawa, and Yora have nasalized counterparts for each of the vowels, and demonstrate contrastive nasalization.[5]

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	t				k
Affricate		t͡s	t͡ʃ
Fricative	β	s	ʃ	ʂ			h
Nasal	m	n
Approximant					j	w
Flap		ɾ

Yawanawá has a similar phonemic inventory to Yaminawa, but uses a voiced bilabial fricative /β/ in place of the voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/.[6] Yawanawá and Sharanahua have an additional phoneme, the voiced labio-velar approximant /w/.[6][7] Shanewana has a labiodental fricative /f/ instead of /ɸ/.[8]

Yaminawa has contrastive tone, with two surface tones, high (H) and low (L).[9]

Grammar

Yaminawa is a polysynthetic, primarily suffixing language that also uses compounding, nasalization, and tone alternations in word-formation. Yaminawa exhibits split ergativity; nouns and third person pronouns pattern along ergative-absolutive lines, while first and second person pronouns pattern along nominative-accusative lines. Yaminawa verbal morphology is extensive, encoding affective (emotional) meanings and categories like associated motion. Yaminawa also has a set of switch reference enclitics that encode same or different subject relationships as well as aspectual relationships between the dependent (marked) clause and the main clause. [9]

Notes

1. Yaminawa at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
   Yawanawá at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
   Sharanawa at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
   Shaninawa at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
   Yora at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Yaminawa Complex". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. David Fleck, 2013, Panoan Languages and Linguistics, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History #99
4. "Yaminahua." Ethnologue. (retrieved 25 June 2011)
5. "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
6. "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories - Yawanawa". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
7. "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories - Sharanahua". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
8. "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories - Shanenawa". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
9. Faust, Norma and Eugene Loos. (2002). Gramática de la lengua yaminahua. Serie lingüística peruana, no. 51. Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

External links

• Yaminahua language dictionary online from IDS
• Sharanahua Language Collection of Pierre Déléage (includes myths, shamanistic songs, and ceremonial songs) at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA).
• Yaminahua (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)