Shipibo language explained
Shipibo language should not be confused with Juruá Kapanawa language.
| Shipibo-Conibo |
| States: | Peru |
| Region: | Ucayali Region |
| Ethnicity: | Shipibo-Conibo people |
| Speakers: | 26,000 |
| Date: | 2003 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Panoan |
| Fam2: | Mainline Panoan |
| Fam3: | Nawa |
| Fam4: | Chama |
| Lc1: | shp |
| Ld1: | Shipibo-Conibo |
| Lc2: | kaq |
| Ld2: | Tapiche Capanahua |
| Glotto: | ship1253 |
| Glottorefname: | Shipibo-Konibo–Kapanawa |
| Map: | Shipibo.png |
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
Shipibo has three attested dialects:
- Shipibo and Konibo (Conibo), which have merged
- Kapanawa of the Tapiche River, which is obsolescent
Extinct Xipináwa (Shipinawa) is thought to have been a dialect as well, but there is no linguistic data.
Phonology
Vowels
Monophthong phonemes!! Front!Central! Back| Close | pronounced as /link/ (i) | | pronounced as /link/ (e) |
|---|
| Mid | | | pronounced as /link/ (o) |
|---|
| Open | | pronounced as /link/ (a) | | |
|---|
- pronounced as //i// and pronounced as //o// are lower than their cardinal counterparts (in addition to being more front in the latter case): pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as //ɯ// is more front than cardinal pronounced as /link/: pronounced as /link/, whereas pronounced as //a// is more close and more central pronounced as /link/ than cardinal pronounced as /link/. The first three vowels tend to be somewhat more central in closed syllables, whereas pronounced as //ɯ// before coronal consonants (especially pronounced as //n, t, s//) can be as central as pronounced as /link/.
- In connected speech, two adjacent vowels may be realized as a rising diphthong.
Nasal
- The oral vowels pronounced as //i, ɯ, o, a// are phonetically nasalized pronounced as /[ĩ, ɯ̃, õ, ã]/ after a nasal consonant, but the phonological behaviour of these allophones is different from the nasal vowel phonemes pronounced as //ĩ, ɯ̃, õ, ã//.
- Oral vowels in syllables preceding syllables with nasal vowels are realized as nasal, but not when a consonant other than pronounced as //w, j// intervenes.
Unstressed
- The second one of the two adjacent unstressed vowels is often deleted.
- Unstressed vowels may be devoiced or even elided between two voiceless obstruents.
Consonants
- pronounced as //m, p, β// are bilabial, whereas pronounced as //w// is labialized velar.
- pronounced as //β// is most typically a fricative pronounced as /link/, but other realizations (such as an approximant pronounced as /link/, a stop pronounced as /link/ and an affricate pronounced as /link/) 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.
- pronounced as //n, ts, s// are alveolar pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|n}}, {{IPAplink|ts}}, {{IPAplink|s}}]/, whereas pronounced as //t// is dental pronounced as /link/.
- The pronounced as //ʂ–ʃ// distinction can be described as an apical–laminal one.
- pronounced as //k// is velar, whereas pronounced as //j// is palatal.
- Before nasal vowels, pronounced as //w, j// are nasalized pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|w̃}}, {{IPAplink|j̃}}]/ and may be even realized close to nasal stops pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|ŋ|ŋʷ}}, {{IPAplink|ɲ}}]/.
- pronounced as //w// is realized as pronounced as /link/ before pronounced as //a, ã//, as pronounced as /link/ before pronounced as //i, ĩ// and as pronounced as /link/ before pronounced as //ɯ, ɯ̃//. It does not occur before pronounced as //o, õ//.
- pronounced as //ɻ// is a very variable sound:
- Intervocalically, it is realized either as continuant, with or without weak frication (pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/).
- Sometimes (especially in the beginning of a stressed syllable) it can be realized as a postalveolar affricate pronounced as /[d̠͡z̠]/, or a stop-approximant sequence pronounced as /[d̠ɹ̠]/.
- It can also be realized as a postalveolar flap pronounced as /link/.
Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. .
- 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 https://web.archive.org/web/20060219075222/http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?id=1107.
- Fleck . David W. . 10 October 2013 . Panoan Languages and Linguistics . Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History . 99 . 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. .
- 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.
External links
