Shipibo language

Not to be confused with Juruá Kapanawa language.

Shipibo-Conibo
Shipibo
Native to	Peru
Region	Ucayali Region
Ethnicity	Shipibo-Conibo people
Native speakers	26,000 (2003) [1]
Language family	Panoan Mainline Panoan Nawa Chama Shipibo-Conibo
Dialects	Shipibo–Konibo Kapanawa ?Xipináwa †
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: shp  – Shipibo-Conibo kaq  – Tapiche Capanahua
Glottolog	ship1253

Shipibo (also Shipibo-Conibo, Shipibo-Konibo) is a Panoan language spoken in Peru and Brazil by approximately 26,000 speakers. Shipibo is a recognized indigenous language of Peru.

Dialects

A Shipibo jar

Shipibo has three attested dialects:

• Shipibo and Konibo (Conibo), which have merged
• Kapanawa of the Tapiche River, ^[2] which is obsolescent

Extinct Xipináwa (Shipinawa) is thought to have been a dialect as well, ^[3] but there is no linguistic data.

Phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs of Shipibo, from Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001 :282)

Monophthong phonemes ^[4]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ ⟨i⟩		ɯ ɯ̃ ⟨e⟩
Mid			o õ ⟨o⟩
Open		a ã ⟨a⟩

• /i/ and /o/ are lower than their cardinal counterparts (in addition to being more front in the latter case): [ i̞ ], [ o̽ ], /ɯ/ is more front than cardinal [ ɯ ]: [ ɯ̟ ], whereas /a/ is more close and more central [ ɐ ] than cardinal [ a ]. The first three vowels tend to be somewhat more central in closed syllables, whereas /ɯ/ before coronal consonants (especially /n,t,s/) can be as central as [ ɨ ]. ^[5]
• In connected speech, two adjacent vowels may be realized as a rising diphthong. ^[6]

Nasal

• The oral vowels /i,ɯ,o,a/ are phonetically nasalized [ĩ,ɯ̃,õ,ã] after a nasal consonant, but the phonological behaviour of these allophones is different from the nasal vowel phonemes /ĩ,ɯ̃,õ,ã/. ^[4]
• Oral vowels in syllables preceding syllables with nasal vowels are realized as nasal, but not when a consonant other than /w,j/ intervenes. ^[6]

Unstressed

• The second one of the two adjacent unstressed vowels is often deleted. ^[6]
• Unstressed vowels may be devoiced or even elided between two voiceless obstruents. ^[6]

Consonants

Consonant phonemes ^[7]

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palato- alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩
Plosive		p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩			k ⟨c/qu⟩
Affricate			ts ⟨ts⟩		tʃ ⟨ch⟩
Fricative	voiceless		s ⟨s⟩	ʂ ⟨s̈h⟩	ʃ ⟨sh⟩		h ⟨j⟩
	voiced	β ⟨b⟩
Approximant		w ⟨hu⟩		ɻ ⟨r⟩	j ⟨y⟩

• /m,p,β/ are bilabial, whereas /w/ is labial–velar.
  • /β/ is most typically a fricative [ β ], but other realizations (such as an approximant [ β̞ ], a stop [ b ] and an affricate [ bβ ]) also appear. The stop realization is most likely to appear in word-initial stressed syllables, whereas the approximant realization appears most often as onsets to non-initial unstressed syllables. ^[4]
• /n,ts,s/ are alveolar [n, ts, s], whereas /t/ is dental [ t̪ ]. ^[7]
• The /ʂ–ʃ/ distinction can be described as an apical–laminal one. ^[4]
• /k/ is velar, whereas /j/ is palatal. ^[7]
• Before nasal vowels, /w,j/ are nasalized [w̃, j̃] and may be even realized close to nasal stops [ŋʷ, ɲ]. ^[6]
• /w/ is realized as [ w ] before /a,ã/, as [ ɥ ] before /i,ĩ/ and as [ ɰ ] before /ɯ,ɯ̃/. It does not occur before /o,õ/. ^[6]
• /ɻ/ is a very variable sound:
  • Intervocalically, it is realized either as continuant, with or without weak frication ([ ɻ ] or [ ʐ ]). ^[4]
  • Sometimes (especially in the beginning of a stressed syllable) it can be realized as a postalveolar affricate [d̠͡z̠], or a stop-approximant sequence [d̠ɹ̠]. ^[6]
  • It can also be realized as a postalveolar flap [ ɾ̠ ]. ^[4]

References

1. Shipibo-Conibo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Tapiche Capanahua at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Fleck (2013), p. 18.
3. Fleck (2013), p. 14.
4. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001), p. 282.
5. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001), pp. 282–283.
6. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001), p. 283.
7. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001), p. 281.

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-509427-1.
• Elias-Ulloa, Jose (2000). El Acento en Shipibo (Stress in Shipibo). Thesis. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima - Peru.
• Elias-Ulloa, Jose (2005). Theoretical Aspects of Panoan Metrical Phonology: Disyllabic Footing and Contextual Syllable Weight. Ph.D. Dissertation. Rutgers University. ROA 804 .
• Fleck, David W. (10 October 2013). "Panoan Languages and Linguistics" (PDF). Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History (99): 1–112. doi:10.5531/sp.anth.0099. hdl:2246/6448. ISSN   0065-9452.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN   0-292-70414-3.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
• Loriot, James and Barbara E. Hollenbach. 1970. "Shipibo paragraph structure." Foundations of Language 6: 43–66. (This was the seminal Discourse Analysis paper taught at SIL in 1956–7.)
• Loriot, James, Erwin Lauriault, and Dwight Day, compilers. 1993. Diccionario shipibo - castellano. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 31. Lima: Ministerio de Educación and Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. 554 p. (Spanish zip-file available online http://www.sil.org/americas/peru/show_work.asp?id=928474530143&Lang=eng) This has a complete grammar published in English by SIL only available through SIL.
• Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi: 10.1017/S0025100301002109

External links

• Shipibo-Conibo at Ethnologue
• Lengua Shipibo at Proel
• Shipibo-Conibo (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)