Shiwilu (Jebero, Chebero, Xebero, Xihuila) is a moribund Amazonian language spoken by the Shiwilu people of Jeberos, Peru. It is spoken by only a small number of older adults and belongs to the Cahuapanan family together with Shawi.
History
The Shiwilu are first mentioned in 1638 after a visit by Father Lucas de la Cueva to them. The language was first documented in the 17th century, and two manuscripts from the mission era are known and were held in the British Museum in 1961.
Status
As of 1961, the language was spoken by about 1,500 people. Today, however, Shiwilu is critically endangered, and is spoken by only 30 elderly people, all of them bilingual in Spanish. A few passive speakers of Shiwilu in their 40s also extst, but the younger generation speaks only Spanish. No survey grammar or dictionary of Shiwilu has been made as of 2011, and the only linguist who had done any work up until "very recently" before 2011 was John Bendor-Samuel, who did fieldwork on Shiwilu between October 1955 and August 1956 and published his doctoral thesis on the language.
Classification
Shiwilu is a member of the Cahuapanan language family, together with the Shawi language, which is still vital in comparison with Shiwilu. This relationship was recognized by Henri Beuchat[fr] and Paul Rivet (1909).
Geographical distribution
Shiwilu is largely spoken in the area of Jeberos, Peru. Previously, it was distributed between the Marañón and Huallaga Rivers, though still centred in Jeberos.
/i/ varies between close front unrounded [i], near-close front unrounded [i̞] and close-mid front unrounded [e].
/u/ varies between near-close near-front rounded [ʊ] and close-mid back weakly rounded [o̜], with the latter realization being the most usual.
/ɘ/ varies between mid near-front unrounded [ɛ̽] and close-mid central unrounded [ɘ].
/ɘ/ is shorter than the other vowels, particularly between voiceless consonants.
The sequence /ɘn/ is sometimes realized as a syllabic [n̩].
/a/ varies between open central unrounded [ä] and near-open retracted front [æ̠]. The vowel chart in Valenzuela & Gussenhoven (2013) puts /a/ in the near-open central position [ɐ].
In closed syllables, /a/ is realized as open-mid central unrounded [ɜ].
† indicates an extinct language, italics indicates independent status of a language, bold indicates that a language family has at least 6 members, * indicates moribund status
