Uwa language

Uwa
Tunebo
Uw Cuwa
Native to	Colombia, formerly in Venezuela
Region	the largest groups live on the northern slopes of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, Boyacá Department
Ethnicity	U'wa
Native speakers	3,550 (2000)
Language family	Chibchan Chibcha–Motilon Chibcha–Tunebo Uwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: tnd – Angosturas Tunebo/Bahiyakuwa tbn – Barro Negro Tunebo (Eastern Tunebo/Yithkaya) tuf – Central Tunebo (Cobaría/Kubaru'wa & Tegría/Tagrinuwa) tnb – Western Tunebo (Aguas Blancas/Rikuwa)
Glottolog	tune1260
ELP	Tunebo

The Uwa language, Uw Cuwa, commonly known as Tunebo, is a Chibchan language spoken by between 1,800 and 3,600 of the Uwa people of Colombia, out of a total population of about 7,000.

Varieties

There are half a dozen known varieties. Communication between modern varieties can be difficult, so they are considered distinct languages.

Adelaar (2004) lists the living

• central dialects Cobaría and Tegría on the northern slopes of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy,
• a western group near Agua Blanca in the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander,
• an eastern group at a place called Barro Negro in the lowlands of Arauca and Casanare,
• and the extinct dialect Sínsiga near Chita, Boyacá.

Umaña (2012) lists Cobaría, Tegría, Agua Blanca, Barro Negro.

Berich lists the dialects Cobaría; Agua Blanca (= Uncasía, Tamarana, Sta Marta); Rinconada, Tegría, Bócota, & Báchira

Cassani lists Sínsiga, Tegría, Unkasía (= Margua), Pedraza, Manare, Dobokubí (= Motilón)

Osborn (1989) lists

• Bethuwa (= Pedraza, extinct),
• Rikuwa (Dukarúa, = Agua Blanca),
• Tagrinuwa (Tegría),
• Kubaruwa (Cobaría),
• Kaibaká (= Bókota),
• Yithkaya (= San Miguel / Barro Negro),
• Bahiyakuwa (= Sínsiga),
• Biribirá,
• and Ruba,

the latter all extinct

Fabre (2005) lists:

• Bontoca (perhaps the same as the Bókota = Kaibaká cited in Osborn), of the mountains of Guican
• Cobaría, along the Cobaría River
• Pedraza or Bethuwa [= Angosturas?], along the Venezuelan border; extinct
• Sínsiga, in the Guican mountains, recorded from Chita, Boyaca in 1871
• Tegría or Tagrinuwa, along the Cobaría River
• Unkasia, along the Chitiga and Marga rivers (Telban 1988)

Additional names in Loukotka are Manare and Uncasica (presumably a spelling variant of Unkasía/Uncacía), as well as Morcote, of which nothing is known. Manare, at the source of the Casanare, is Eastern Tunebo.

Phonology

Vowel

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	e	o
Low	a

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Voiceless stop		t		k	kʷ	ʔ
Voiced Stop	b
Fricative		s	ʃ			h
Nasal	m	n
Vibrant		r
Oral semi-vowel	w		j
Nasal semi-vowel	w̃

References

• Adelaar, Willem F. H.; Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge University Press.
• Alain Fabre, 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos.
• Edna R. Headland, 1994. Diccionario Bilingüe Tunebo-Español, Español-Tunebo con una breve gramática tuneba. Ann Arbor: UMI.

External links

• uwacolombia.org