Arutani language explained

Arutani
Nativename:Uruak, Awake
States:Brazil, Venezuela
Region:Roraima (Brazil); Karum River area, Bolivar State (Venezuela)
Ethnicity:20 Auaké
Speakers:6
Date:2020
Ref:e25
Elp:667
Familycolor:American
Fam1:Arutani–Sape ?
Iso3:atx
Glotto:arut1244
Glottorefname:Arutani
Map2:Lang Status 20-CR.svg
Notice:IPA

Arutani (Orotani, Urutani, also known as Awake, Auake, Auaqué, Aoaqui, Oewaku, ethnonym Uruak) is a nearly extinct language spoken in Roraima, Brazil and in the Karum River area of Bolivar State, Venezuela. There are only around 6 speakers left.[1]

Documentation

Arutani is one of the most poorly attested extant languages in South America, and may be a language isolate.[2] [3]

Existing data is limited to a 1911 word list by Koch-Grünberg (1928: 308-313),[4] a 1940 word list by Armellada & Matallana (1942: 101-110),[5] and a 100-item Swadesh list by Migliazza (1978).[6] There is also an unpublished Swadesh list by Fèlix Cardona i Puig from the 1930s-1940s, as well as an unpublished 200-item Swadesh list by Walter Coppens from 1970.[7]

Sociolinguistic situation

Traditionally, Arutani was spoken along the Paragua River and Uraricaá River in southern Venezuela and the northern tip of Roraima, Brazil.

Ethnic Arutani also speak Ninam (Shirián), since they now mostly live in Ninam villages. The remaining speakers of Arutani are found in the following Ninam villages.[8]

According to Loukotka (1968), it was once spoken on the southern banks of Maracá Island in the Rio Branco area.[9]

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Máku, Sape, Warao, Tikuna-Yuri, and Tukano language families due to contact.[10]

Lexical similarities with Tucanoan languages are mostly cultural loanwords. Arutani and Tucanoan languages also have completely different pronominal systems, and sound correspondences are irregular. Thus, similarities between them can be attributed to contact with Eastern Tucanoan.[10]

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Auaké.[9]

gloss Auaké
one kiuaná
two kiuañéke
three uatitimitilíake
head ki-kakoáti
eye ki-gakoá
tooth ki-aké
man madkié
water okoá
fire ané
sun nizyí
manioc mokiá
jaguar kaiyá
house iméd

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Arutani . Endangered Languages Project . 20 September 2021.
  2. Hammarström. Harald. The status of the least documented language families in the world. Language Documentation & Conservation. 2010. 4. 183.
  3. Book: Dixon , R. M. W. . Cambridge University Press Cambridge. A. Y. Aikhenvald. The Amazonian languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. 1999. 343.
  4. Koch-Grünberg, Theodor. 1928. Vom Roroima Zum Orinoco, Ergebnisse einer Reise in Nordbrasilien und Venezuela in den Jahren 1911-1913. Vol. 4. Stuttgart: Strecker und Schröder.
  5. Armellada, Césareo de, and Baltazar de Matallana. 1942. Exploración Del Paragua. Boletín de La Sociedad Venezolana de Ciencias Naturales 53, 61-110.
  6. Migliazza, Ernest C. 1978. Maku, Sape and Uruak languages current status and basic lexicon. Anthropological Linguistics 20(3), 133-140.
  7. Coppens, Walter. 2008. Los Uruak (Arutani). In W. Coppens, M. Á. Perera, R. Lizarralde & H. Seijas (eds.) Los aborígenes de Venezuela. Volume 2, 747-770. Caracas: Fundación La Salle/Monte Avila Editores/Ediciones IVIC/Instituto Caribe de Antropología y Sociología.
  8. Rosés Labrada, Jorge Emilio, Thiago Chacon & Francia Medina. 2020. Arutani (Venezuela and Brazil) – Language Snapshot. In Peter K. Austin (ed.) Language Documentation and Description 17, 170-177. London: EL Publishing.
  9. Book: Loukotka, Čestmír . Čestmír Loukotka . Classification of South American Indian languages . registration . UCLA Latin American Center . 1968 . Los Angeles.
  10. Jolkesky . Marcelo Pinho de Valhery . 2016 . Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas . Ph.D. dissertation . Brasília . University of Brasília . 2.