Sharanawa language

Sharanawa
Sharanahua
Arara, Sharanahuan tsain
Native toPeru
EthnicitySharanawa
Native speakers
(450 cited 2000)
Dialects
  • Marinawa
  • Chandinawa
  • Mastanawa
Language codes
ISO 639-3mcd
Glottologshar1245

Sharanawa (Acre Arara) is a Panoan language of Peru. There are 200 Sharanawa (meaning 'good people') in Brazil, but only 3 speak the language. Its speakers call the language Arara. The Mastanawa dialect may belong to either Sharanawa or Yaminawa, although the Mastanawa regarded their language to be identical with Sharanawa.

Phonology

Consonants

Sharanawa consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop p t k
Affricate ts tʃ
Fricative ɸ s ʃ2 ʂ2 h1
Nasal m n
Approximant j w
Tap/Flap ɾ
  1. Pike and Scott (1962) indicate that [h] is velar.
  2. [ʃ] and [ʂ] are contrastive only when preceding [a] or [ã].

Vowels

Front Central Back
plain nasal plain nasal plain nasal
High i ĩ ɨ ɨ̃ u ũ
Low a ã

Tone

Sharanawa is a tonal language. It distinguishes high tone, marked with an acute accent, and low tone, which is unmarked.

References

  1. ↑ "A Survey of the Languages of the Upper Purus River". www.sil.org.
  2. 1 2 3 Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang, Will (2012). "Phonological inventory of Sharanawa language". The South American Phonological Inventory Database (version 1.1.3 ed.). Berkeley: University of California: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Digital Resource.
  3. 1 2 Pike, Eunice; Scott, Eugene (1962-01-01). "The Phonological Hierarchy of Marinahua". Phonetica. 8 (1–3): 1–8. doi:10.1159/000258115. ISSN 1423-0321.