Rikbaktsa language

The Rikbaktsa language, also spelled Aripaktsa, Erikbatsa, Erikpatsa and known ambiguously as Canoeiro, is a language spoken by the Rikbaktsa people of Mato Grosso, Brazil, that forms its own branch of the Macro-Gê languages.

Rikbaktsá
erigpaksá
Native toBrazil
RegionMato Grosso
Ethnicity1,140 Rikbaktsa people (2006)[1]
Native speakers
40 (2010)[1]
Macro-Gê
  • Rikbaktsá
Language codes
ISO 639-3rkb
Glottologrikb1245
ELPRikbaktsá[2]

As in other languages of the area, word endings indicate the gender of the speaker.[3] Rikbaktsa is a subject-object-verb language.[1]

Most Rikbaktsa can speak both Rikbaktsa and Portuguese. Younger individuals tend to speak Portuguese more frequently and fluently than their elders, but older individuals generally struggle with Portuguese and use it only with non-indigenous Brazilians.[3]

Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with the Cariban languages.[4]

Locations

The 22nd edition of Ethnologue reports that it is spoken around confluence of the Sangue River and Juruena River in:

Phonology
Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Close-mid e o
Mid ə
Open a

All vowels have nasalized forms.[5]

Consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Palato-alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p t k
voiced b d
Affricate t͡ʃ
Fricative ʃ h
Nasal m n
Approximant j w
Flap ɾ ɽ

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.[6]

glossErikbaktsa
oneaistuːba
earka-spi
toothírata
handka-shuisha
womanmatutsi
waterpihʔik
fireidoː
stoneharahairi
maizeuanátsi

References
  1. Rikbaktsá at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Rikbaktsá.
  3. Arruda, Rinaldo S.V. "Rikbaktsa: Language." In Encyclopedia of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil. Instituto Socioambiental (November 1998).
  4. Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
  5. "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
  6. Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
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