Arhuaco language

Arhuaco
Ica
Ikʉ
Native toColombia
Ethnicity14,800 Arhuacos (2001)
Native speakers
8,000 (2009)
Chibchan
  • Arwako–Chimila
    • Arwako languages
      • Arhuaco
Language codes
ISO 639-3arh
Glottologarhu1242
ELPIca
Linguasphere81-EDB-aa
Aruako is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
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Arhuaco, commonly known as Ikʉ (Arhuaco: Ikʉ) (also known as Aruaco, Bintuk, Bíntukua, Bintucua, Ica, Ijca, Ijka, Ika, and Ike) is a Chibchan language, spoken in Colombia by the Arhuaco people.

There are 8,000 speakers, all in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of Colombia, 90% of whom are monolingual. They have a very strong traditional culture and have vibrant use of their tongue. Literacy is 1 to 5% in their native language. Some speak Spanish, and 15 to 25% are literate in it.

Phonology

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i ⟨i⟩ ɨ ⟨ʉ⟩ u ⟨u⟩
Mid e ⟨e⟩ ə ⟨y⟩ o ⟨o⟩
Open a ⟨a⟩

Arhuaco has 17 consonant phonemes:

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Alveolo-
palatal		 Velar Glottal
Occlusive voiceless p ⟨p⟩ t ⟨t⟩ tʃ ⟨ch⟩ k ⟨k⟩ ʔ ⟨ꞌ⟩
voiced b ⟨b⟩ d ⟨d⟩ dʒ ⟨ɉ⟩ ɡ ⟨g⟩
Nasal m ⟨m⟩ n~ŋ ⟨n⟩
Fricative voiceless s ⟨s⟩ h ⟨j⟩
voiced β ⟨w⟩ z ⟨z⟩ ʒ ⟨zh⟩
Flap ɾ ⟨r⟩

Syllable structure

With some exceptions, Arhuaco syllables may begin with up to two consonants (the second of which must be a glide /w j/) and may be closed by /ʔ n r w/ or /j/.

Prosody

Arhuaco stress normally falls on penultimate syllables, with secondary stresses occurring on every other preceding syllable, in the case of longer words (e.g. /ˌunkəˈsia/ 'protective bracelet'). There are some affixes and enclitics that are extrametrical and do not count as syllables for stress assignment.

Morphology

Personal pronouns

Arhuaco personal pronouns
person singular plural
1st nən niβi
2nd ma miβi
3rd a ikənaʔ

Frank (1985, 34) lists six personal pronouns for Arhuaco, with singular and plural numbers for first, second, and third persons. They "do not occur very frequently in text; they occur occasionally in subject position, very rarely in object position, and most frequently as the object of a preposition".

Unusually, person marking in Arhuaco verbs has evolved to have effectively become a way to mark epistemic modality or evidentiality.

Syntax

The language uses a subject–object–verb (SOV) sentence structure.

Notes

  1. ↑ Arhuaco language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009) Closed access icon
  2. ↑ Arhuaco at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Arhuaco, by Arango and Sánchez, Ethnologue, 1998, access date 16 April 2008
  4. ↑ Landaburu, Jon (2000). La lengua Ika. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
  5. ↑ Frank, Paul Stephen (1985). A Grammar of Ika (Chibchan, Colombia) (Thesis). OCLC 857226516. ProQuest 303374815.
  6. ↑ Bergqvist, Henrik (2012). "Epistemic marking in Ika (Arwako)". Studies in Language. 36 (1): 154–181. doi:10.1075/sl.36.1.05ber.
  7. ↑ Ostler, Nicholas (2000). "The Development of Transitivity in the Chibchan Languages of Colombia". In Smith, John Charles; Bentley, Delia (eds.). Historical Linguistics 1995. Volume 1: General issues and non-Germanic Languages. Selected papers from the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, August 1995. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. pp. 279–293. ISBN 978-90-272-3666-1.

References