Guayabero language

Guayabero
Jiw
Native toColombia
RegionUpper Guaviaré River
Ethnicity1,120 (2011)
Native speakers
1,000 (2008)
Guajiboan
  • Southwest
    • Guayabero
Language codes
ISO 639-3guo
Glottologguay1257
ELPGuayabero

Guayabero is a Guahiban language that is spoken by a thousand people in Colombia. Many of its speakers are monoglots, with few fluent Spanish speakers in the population.

Phonology

The Guayabero syllable structure can be represented as CV(V)(C)(C). Each syllable has an obligatory single consonant onset and a nucleus of one or two vowels. An optional coda of at most two consonants can occur in both word-medial and final positions.

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p t k ʔ
voiced b d
Affricate t͡ʃ
Fricative ɸ s x h
Nasal m n
Approximant w l j
Flap ɾ
Vowels
Front Central Back
High i ɨ u
Mid e o
Low æ a

References

  1. 1 2 Guayabero at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 Keels J (1985). "Guayabero: Phonology and morphophonemics" (PDF). Language Data. Amerindian Series. 9: 57–87. ISBN 0-88312-091-7.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  3. 1 2 Ortiz, Nubia Tobar (2000). Aspectos generales de la lengua Guayabero. In González de Pérez, María Stella and Rodríguez de Montes, María Luisa (eds.), Lenguas indígenas de Colombia: una visión descriptiva: Santafé de Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. pp. 599–610.