Muinane language

Muinane is an indigenous American language spoken in Colombia.

Muinane belongs to the Boran language family, along with Bora.

Muinane is spoken by 150 people in Colombia along the Upper Cahuinarí river in the Department of Amazonas. There may be some speakers in Peru.

• Voiceless stops and affricates contrast with their geminate counterparts: tː tʃː tʲː kː.

There are two tones in Muinane: high and low.

Word order in Muinane is generally SOV. Case marking is nominative–accusative.

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Muinane:

Muinane is written using a Latin alphabet. A chart of symbols with the sounds they represent is as follows:

• Palatalized consonants are written using the unpalatalized forms plus y: ty /tʲ/, dy /dʲ/, ry /rʲ/. For the purposes of alphabetization, these are considered sequences of letters.
• Tone is not generally indicated in writing. When it is shown, it is indicated by an acute accent over the vowel: á, é, í, ɨ́, ó, ú.
• The Muinane writing system is based on Spanish orthography. For that reason, the sound /k/ is written as c before a, ɨ, o, and u and as qu before e and i. Likewise, the sound /ɡ/ is written as gu before e and i, and g elsewhere.

• Aschmann, Richard P. (1993), Proto-Witotoan, Arlington, TX: SIL International, ISBN 0-88312-189-1
• Walton, James P.; Walton, Janice W.; Pakky de Buenaventure, Clementina (1997), Diccionario Bilingüe Muinane-Español/Español-Muinane, Santafé de Bogotá: Editorial Buena Semilla, OCLC 468683910