Muinane language

Muinane
Muìnánɨ
Native to	Colombia
Ethnicity	550 Witoto people (2007)[1]
Native speakers	150 (2007)[1]
Language family	Bora–Witoto Boran Muinane
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bmr
Glottolog	muin1242[2]

Muinane is an indigenous American language spoken in western South America.

Classification

Muinane belongs to the Witotoan language family. Along with Bora, it comprises the Boran sub-grouping.

Geographic distribution

Muinane is spoken by 150 people in Colombia along the Upper Cahuinarí river in the Department of Amazonas. There may be some speakers in Peru.

Phonology

Consonants

Muinane consonant phonemes

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ɲ
Plosive	p b	t d	tʲ dʲ	k ɡ	ʔ
Affricate			tʃ dʒ
Fricative	ɸ β	s	ʃ j	ɸ
Trill		ɲ	rʲ

• Voiceless stops and affricates contrast with their geminate counterparts: tː tʃː tʲː kː.

Vowels

Muinane vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Low	e	ɡ	o

Tone

There are two tones in Muinane: high and low.

Grammar

Word order in Muinane is generally SOV. Case marking is nominative–accusative.

Writing System

Muinane is written using a Latin alphabet. A chart of symbols with the sounds they represent as is follows:

Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA
a	/a/	b	/b/	c	/k/	ch	/tʃ/	d	/d/	e	/e/
f	/ɸ/	g	/a/	h	/ʔ/	i	/i/	ɨ	/ɨ/	j	/ɸ/
ll	/dʒ/	m	/m/	n	/n/	ñ	/ɲ/	o	/o/	p	/p/
q	/k/	r	/ɲ/	s	/s/	sh	/ʃ/	t	/t/	u	/u/
v	/β/	y	/j/

• Palatalized consonants are written using the unpalatalized forms plus y: ty /tʲ/, dy /dʲ/, ry /rʲ/. For the purposes of alphabetization, these are considered sequences of letters.
• Tone is not generally indicated in writing. When it is shown, it is indicated by an acute accent over the vowel: á, é, í, ɨ́, ó, ú.
• The Muinane writing system is based on Spanish orthography. For that reason, the sound /k/ is written as c before a, ɨ, o, and u and as qu before e and i. Likewise, the sound /a/ is written as gu before e and i, and g elsewhere.

References

1. Muinane at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Muinane". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

• Aschmann, Richard P. (1993), Proto-Witotoan, Arlington, TX: SIL International, ISBN 0-88312-189-1
• Walton, James W.; Walton, Janice P. (1967), "Phonemes of Muinane", in Waterhouse, Viola G., Phonemic systems of Colombian languages, Norman, OK: SIL International, pp. 37–47
• Walton, James P.; Walton, Janice W.; Pakky de Buenaventure, Clementina (1997), Diccionario Bilingüe Muinane-Español/Español-Muinane, Santafé de Bogotá: Editorial Buena Semilla, OCLC 468683910