Kashinawa language

Not to be confused with Tarauacá Kashinawa language.
Cashinahua
Kashinawa of the Ibuaçu River
Native to Peru, Brazil
Ethnicity Kaxinawá people
Native speakers
1,200 (2003–2007)[1]
Panoan
  • Mainline Panoan

    • Nawa
      • Headwaters
        • Cashinahua
Language codes
ISO 639-3 cbs
Glottolog cash1254[2]

Cashinahua (also spelled Kaxinawá, Kaxynawa, Caxinawa, and Caxinawá), or Hantxa Kuin, Huni Kui, is an indigenous American language of western South America which belongs to the Panoan language family. It is spoken by about 1,600 Cashinahua people in Perú along the Curanja and Purus rivers; and in Brazil by 400 Cashinahua people in the state of Acre.

About five to ten percent of Cashinahua speakers have some Spanish language proficiency,[3] while forty percent are literate and twenty to thirty percent are literate in Spanish as a second language.

Dialects are Brazilian Kashinawa, Peruvian Kashinawa, and the extinct Juruá Kapanawa (Capanahua of the Juruá River) and Paranawa.

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close
(high)
Oral i /i/ e /ɨ/ u /u~ʊ~o/
Nasal ĩ /ĩ/ /ɨ̃/ ũ /ũ~õ/
Open
(low)
Oral a /ɑ/
Nasal ã /ã/

Consonants

Consonants  Labial  Alveolar  Retroflex  Palatal  Velar  Glottal 
Stop  p /p/
b /b/
t /t/
d /d/
    k /k/ /ʔ/
Fricative    s /s/ x/shr /ʂ/ x/sh /ʃ/   j/h /ɨ/
Affricates    ts /t͡s/   ch/t͡ʃ/    
Nasal  m /m/ n /n/      
Approximant  v/w /w~β/     y /j/    

Language development

A Cashinahua dictionary has been compiled and published since 1980. Generatives come before nouns. Articles and adjectives are placed after nouns. Cashinahua uses a distinct interrogative punctuation mark, different from the question mark. There are seven prefixes and five suffixes. Roman script is used.

Notes

  1. Cashinahua at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Cashinahua". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. "Kashinawa." Ethnologue. Retrieved 8 Dec 2011.

References


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