Bribri language

Last updated
Bribri
Talamanca
Su Uhtuk
Native to Costa Rica
Region Limón province: Talamanca cantón, along Lari, Telire, and Uren rivers
Puntarenas province: Buenas Aires cantón
Ethnicity12,200 Bribri (2000) [1]
Native speakers
7,000 (2011) [1]
Dialects
  • Coroma
  • Amubre
  • Salitre
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Costa Rica
Language codes
ISO 639-3 bzd
Glottolog brib1243
ELP Bribri
Costa-rica bribri.png
Map showing dialects of Bribri Idioma bribri dialectos.png
Map showing dialects of Bribri

Bribri, also known as Bri-bri, Bribriwak, and Bribri-wak, is a Chibchan language, from a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of those countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. As of 2002, there were about 11,000 speakers left. [2] An estimate by the National Census of Costa Rica in 2011 found that Bribri is currently spoken by 54.7% of the 12,785 Bribri people, about 7,000 individuals. [3] It is a tonal language whose word order is subject–object–verb.

Contents

There are three traditional dialects of Bribri: Coroma (in the western region of the Talamanca mountain range), Amubre (in the eastern region of the Talamanca mountain range) and Salitre (in the South Pacific area). Bribri is a tribal name, deriving from a word for 'mountainous' in their own language. The Bribri language is also referred to as Su Uhtuk, which means 'our language'. [4] Bribri is reportedly most similar to sister language Cabécar as both languages have nasal harmony, but they are mutually unintelligible. [5]

Phonology

Consonants

Bribri consonant inventory [6]
Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar
~Palatal 		Velar Glottal
Occlusive Voiced  b ~ m   d ~ n ɟ ~ ɲ
Short p t k ʔ
Long pː tː t͜kʲ kː
Affricate Short t͜s t͜ʃ
Long t͜ːs t͜ːʃ
Fricative s ʃ h
Rhotic ɾ ~ n
Glide w j

All voiced consonants have nasal allophones in the environment of (before or after) nasal vowels. In the case of /d/, flapped allophones occur initially before a consonant, and medially between vowels. Occlusive [d,n] only occur initially before a vowel.

Long and short consonants contrast medially and word-finally.

Vowels

I, u and a are pronounced in the same manner as they would be in Spanish. E and o are more open than in Spanish. The sound of ë is between i and e, and ö is between u and o. The nasal vowels are pronounced similarly to the corresponding orals, with the addition of some air exiting through the nose.

In Coroma dialect, ã has merged into /ɔ̃/, and an initial unaccented vowel /a/ or /ã/ tends to be dropped. [7]

Bribri vowel inventory [6]
Front Central Back
High oral i u
nasal ĩ ũ
Near-high ɪ ⟨ë⟩ ʊ ⟨ö⟩
Mid-low oral ɛ ɔ
nasal ɛ̃ ɔ̃
Low oral a
nasal ã
Spanish examples of oral vowels:
yì

¿quién?

ù

casa

yë

padre, papá

tö

sí

yeꞌ

yo

só

cucaracha

awá

médico

Spanish examples of nasal vowels:
mĩ

madre, mamá

ũ

olla

sẽ

eso, ese

mõ

nube

ã

en; para

Pitch accent

In stressed or 'accented' syllables, Bribri distinguishes high (allophonically rising) and falling tones; unstressed syllables do not distinguish tone and tend to have low pitch. There are past reports that high and rising tone are contrastive in Amubre dialect, for a three-way distinction in accented syllables; however, this was not confirmed with more recent investigations. [6]

Syllable structure

The final syllable of a root is accented (tonic) and is maximally CVC. All syllables but the last are unaccented and maximally CV̆; the vowel is short and may only be /a i u/ or their nasal counterparts. The vowels in such syllables may be elided, producing phonetic consonant sequences. [6]

Alphabet

The Linguistics Department at the University of Costa Rica has conceived a standardized spelling system that is based on several earlier attempts. [7]

Bribri sign in a restaurant in Bribri in Talamanca, Costa Rica. Translation: "I'm hungry, I'm going to eat." Bribri skilt.jpg
Bribri sign in a restaurant in Bribrí in Talamanca, Costa Rica. Translation: "I'm hungry, I'm going to eat."
Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A B D Ch E Ë I J K L M N Ñ O Ö P Pp R Rr S Sh T Tt Tch Tk Ts U W Y ꞌ
Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
abdcheëijklmnñoöppprrrsshttttchtktsuwyꞌ
Value
abdtʃeɪi, jhkɽmnɲoʊppːɾrsʃttːtːʃtktsuwɟʔ

Nasal vowels are indicated by a tilde: ⟨ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ⟩ (Previously indicated with a macron below: a̱, e̱, i̱, o̱, u̱), except after a nasal consonant (already indicating nasalisation of the vowel).

Tone is indicated by the grave accent for the high/rising tone and the acute accent for the falling tone. Unaccented syllables are not marked.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Bribri at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ "Ethnologue". Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 22 February 2011.
  3. ↑ "Vista de Morfología verbal de la lengua bribri". revistas.ucr.ac.cr. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  4. ↑ "Bribri Language and the Bribri Indian Tribe (Bri-Bri, Talamanca, Coroma)". www.native-languages.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  5. ↑ "Bribri". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Chevrier, Natacha (2017). Analyse de la phonologie du bribri (chibcha) dans une perspective typologique: Nasalité et géminée modulée.
  7. 1 2 3 Jara & García 2013.

Bibliography

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