Karitiâna language

Karitiâna
Region	Brazil
Ethnicity	Karitiâna
Native speakers	210 (2006)
Language family	Tupian Arikem Karitiâna
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ktn
Glottolog	kari1311
ELP	Karitiana

Karitiâna or Caritiana is a Tupian language of the state of Rondônia, in the Amazon region of Brazil. Their reservation, demarcated by the Fundação Nacional do Indio (FUNAI) in 1977, consists of roughly 90,000 hectares of jungle. The majority of the Karitiana people live in one village at the northern edge of this reservation, located 90 km (by road) south of the state capital, Porto Velho.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ	ɨ ɨ̃
Mid	e ẽ		o õ
Low		a ã

Consonants

	Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t		k	ʔ
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative		s			h
Rhotic		r
Approximant			j	w

The nasals /m n ɲ/ are prestopped [ᵇm ᵈn ᶡɲ] if they are preceded by an oral vowel, and poststopped [mᵇ nᵈ ɲᶡ] if they are followed by one. The velar nasal /ŋ/ is denasalized to [ɡ] before oral vowels in unstressed syllables, poststopped to [ŋᶢ] before oral vowels in stressed syllables, and prestopped [ᶢŋ] after oral vowels.

/h r j w/ are nasalized [h̃ r̃ w̃ ȷ̃] when surrounded by nasal vowels.

References

• Landin, David J. (1988). "As orações karitiâna" (PDF). Série Lingüística (in Portuguese). 9 (2): 30–50.
• Landin, David J. (2005) [1983]. Dicionário e léxico karitiâna/português (PDF) (in Portuguese). Brasília: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
• Landin, Rachel M. (1987). "Conjunções karitiâna de nivel superior" (PDF). Série Lingüística (in Portuguese). 9 (1): 199–206.