Muinane language

Not to be confused with Nipode language.

Muinane
Muìnánɨ
Native to	Colombia
Region	Puerto Santander, Amazonas; between Caquetá River and Yari River in Caquetá Department
Ethnicity	2,100 (2018) [1]
Native speakers	150 (2007) [1]
Language family	?Bora–Witoto Boran Muinane
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bmr
Glottolog	muin1242
ELP	Muinane
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Muinane is an indigenous American language spoken in Colombia.

Classification

Muinane belongs to the Boran language family, along with Bora.

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: tːtʃːtʲːkː.

Vowels

Muinane vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Low	ɛ	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.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Muinane: ^[2]

English	Muinane
one	sánótro
two	minóke
head	nígai
eye	adíge
tooth	ígaino
man	gáife
water	negfuáyu
fire	köxögai
sun	neʔegbua
maize	bédya
jaguar	höku

Writing System

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

Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA	Latin	IPA
a	/a/	b	/b/	c	/k/-/s/	ch	/tʃ/	d	/d/	e	/e/
f	/ɸ/	g(u)	/ɡ/-/x/	h	/ʔ/	i	/i/	ɨ	/ɨ/	j	/x/
ll	/dʒ/	m	/m/	n	/n/	ñ	/ɲ/	o	/o/	p	/p/
qu	/k/	r	/r/	z	/s/	s	/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 /ɡ/ is written as gu before e and i, and g elsewhere.

References

1. Muinane at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages . Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.

Sources

• 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. (ed.), 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