Matsiguenga language explained

Machiguenga
Nativename:	Matsigenka
States:	Perú
Ethnicity:	Machiguenga (2007)
Date:	2007
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	American
Fam1:	Arawakan
Fam2:	Southern
Fam3:	Campa
Lc1:	mcb
Ld1:	Machiguenga
Lc2:	cox
Ld2:	Nanti (Pucapucari)
Glotto:	mats1245
Glottorefname:	Matsi-Nan

Machiguenga (Matsigenka) is a major Arawakan language in the Campa sub-branch of the family. It is spoken in the Urubamba River Basin and along the Manu River in the Cusco and Madre de Dios departments of Peru by around 6,200 people. According to Ethnologue, it is experiencing pressure from Spanish and Quechua in the Urubamba region, but is active and healthy in the Manu region (most speakers are monolingual in Matsigenka). It is close enough to Nomatsiguenga that the two are sometimes considered dialects of a single language; both are spoken by the Machiguenga people. Nanti is partially mutually intelligible but ethnically distinct.

There is extensive morphological inflection in Matsigenka; it is considered to be polysynthetic and features an agglutinative morphology, where both suffixes and prefixes are used to mark various inflectional categories.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Plosive	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Affricate		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Fricative	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Nasal	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Rhotic		pronounced as /link/

Sounds pronounced as //p, t, tʲ// are heard as voiced pronounced as /[b, d, dʲ]/ after nasal consonants. They may also be heard as prenasalized pronounced as /[ᵐb, ⁿd]/ in word-initial positions.
pronounced as //β// can be heard as approximant sounds pronounced as /[w, β̞]/ intervocalically between pronounced as //a//. It can also be heard as a voiced plosive [b] after nasals, and as prenasal pronounced as /[ᵐb]/ in word-initial position.
Sounds pronounced as //ɣ, ɣʲ// can be heard as approximant sounds pronounced as /[ɰ, ɰʲ]/ intervocalically in syllable-initial position, and pronounced as //ɣʲ// as pronounced as /link/ in free variation in word-initial position. They are also heard as pronounced as /[ɡ, ɡʲ]/ after nasal sounds. pronounced as //ɣ, ɣʲ// can be heard as prenasal pronounced as /[ᵑɡ, ᵑɡʲ]/ in word-initial position.
pronounced as //n// can be heard as pronounced as /link/ before velar sounds.^[1]

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Open	pronounced as /link/

pronounced as //i, u// can be heard as semivowels pronounced as /[w, j]/ when preceding vowels.

Notes and References

Book: Snell, Betty . Machiguenga: Fonología y Vocabulario Breve . Pucallpa: Instituto Lingüístico del Verano . 1978 . es.