Tucano language explained

Tucano
Nativename:	Dahseyé
States:	Brazil, Colombia
Ethnicity:	Tucano people
Speakers:	4,600 in Brazil
Date:	2006
Ref:	e25
Speakers2:	7,020 in Colombia (2012), including Pisamira
Familycolor:	American
Fam1:	Tucanoan
Fam2:	Eastern
Fam3:	North
Nation:	Brazil (São Gabriel da Cachoeira)
Lc1:	tuo
Ld1:	Tucano
Lc2:	arj
Ld2:	Arapaso
Glotto:	tuca1252
Glottoname:	Tucano
Glotto2:	arap1275
Glottoname2:	Arapaso
Elp2:	1705
Elpname2:	Arapaso
Map:	Tucano.png

Tucano, also Tukano or Tucana, endonym Dahseyé (Dasea), is a Tucanoan language spoken in Amazonas, Brazil and Colombia.

Many Tariana people, speakers of the endangered Tariana language are switching to Tucano.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/
	voiced	pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/
Nasal		(pronounced as /ink/)	(pronounced as /ink/)		(pronounced as /ink/)
Fricative			pronounced as /ink/			pronounced as /ink/
Trill			pronounced as /ink/
Approximant		pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/

Nasal sounds [m n ŋ] are variants of voiced stops /b d ɡ/ between nasal vowels. Stops may also be heard as prenasalized [ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ] after nasal vowels. /w/ can be heard as a nasal bilabial semivowel pronounced as /link/ in the environment of nasal vowels. Allophones of /ɾ/ can be heard as pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/.^{[1] [2]}

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Mid	pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Low		pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/

See also

• Tucano people

References

Spanish

• Tukanos

Bibliography

• A Fala Tukano dos Ye'pâ-Masa: Tomo I: Gramática . Henri Ramirez (1997) · Manaus: Inspetoria Salesiana Missionária da Amazônia, CEDEM.
• Welch, Betty and West, Birdie (2000). In Lenguas indígenas de Colombia: una visión descriptiva edited by González de Pérez, María Stella and Rodríguez de Montes, María Luisa. Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
• Bibliografía de la familia lingüística Tukano (antes Betoya) (pp. 79-104). Marcelino de Castellvi (1939). In Proceedings of the second convention of the Inter American Bibliographical and Library Association 2:2 Washington, D.C.
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. .
• Proto Tucanoan (pp. 119-149). Nathan E. Waltz and Alva Wheeler (1972). In Comparative Studies in Amerindian Languages Mouton de Gruyter.

External links

• Tucanoan Languages Collection of Janet Chernela, housed at AILLA, containing audio recordings, transcriptions, translations and field notes from the 1970s and 1980s.

Notes and References

1. Book: West, Birdie. Phonemic system of Tucano. Welch. Betty. Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma. 1967. Viola G. Waterhouse (ed.), Phonemic systems of Colombian languages. 11-24.
2. Aikhenvald, 1996.