Muinane language

Muinane
Spoken in	Colombia
Native speakers	150  (date missing)
Language family	Bora–Witoto Boran Muinane
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bmr

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	x
Trill		r	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	a	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 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	/ɡ/	h	/ʔ/	i	/i/	ɨ	/ɨ/	j	/x/
ll	/dʒ/	m	/m/	n	/n/	ñ	/ɲ/	o	/o/	p	/p/
q	/k/	r	/r/	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 that of Spanish. 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 /ɡ/ is written as gu before e and i, and g elsewhere.

References

• 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, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_work.asp?id=12603 
• Walton, James P.; Walton, Janice W.; Pakky de Buenaventure, Clementina (1997), Diccionario Bilingüe Muinane-Español/Español-Muinane, Santafé de Bogotá: Editorial Buena Semilla, ISBN 968-9281-12-5, http://www.sil.org/americas/colombia/pubs/abstract.asp?id=38009 

External links

• Entry for Muinane at Rosetta Project