Emberá Catío

Catío
Emberá-Catío
Native toColombia, Panama
Native speakers
(15,000 cited 1992)
Chocoan
Language codes
ISO 639-3cto
Glottologembe1260
ELPEmberá-Catío
Linguasphere81-EIA-ad

Catío Emberá (Catío, Katío) is an indigenous American language spoken by the Embera people of Colombia and Panama.

The language was spoken by 15,000 people in Colombia, and a few dozen in Panama, according to data published in 1992. 90 to 95% of the speakers are monolingual with a 1% literacy rate. The language is also known as Eyabida, and like most Embera languages goes by the name Embena 'human'.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive/
Affricate		 aspirated pʰ tʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ
ejective pʼ tʼ t͡ʃʼ kʼ
voiced b d d͡ʒ
Fricative aspirated sʰ h
ejective sʼ
Nasal m n
Rhotic trill r
tap ɾ
Semivowel w

Vowels

Vowels
Front Central Back
unrounded rounded
High i ĩ ɯ ɯ̃ u ũ
Mid e ẽ o õ
Low a ã

Writing system

Catio is written with the Latin script.

Vowels
aãeẽiĩoõuũʉʉ̃
Consonants
mkbptchszgjrrrdnywñ

Notes

  1. ↑ Catío at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 3 4 Emberá Catío at Ethnologue (12th ed., 1992).
  3. 1 2 Mortensen, Charles Arthur (1994). Nasalization in a revision of Embera-Katio phonology (MA thesis). Arlington: University of Texas.
  4. ↑ Silva Vallejo & Majore 2018, p. 77-78.

Bibliography