Wapishana language

Wapishana (Wapixana) is an Arawakan language of Guyana and Brazil.

Wapixana
Native toGuyana, Brazil
EthnicityWapishana
Native speakers
13,000 (2000)[1]
Arawakan
Language codes
ISO 639-3wap
Glottologwapi1253
ELPWapixana[2]

Kaufman (1994) considered Wapishana, Atorada, and Mapidian to be dialects. Aikhenvald (1999) separates Mawayana/Mapidian/Mawakwa (considered as a single language) from Wapishana, and she includes them in a Rio Branco branch. Ethnologue notes that Atorada has 50% lexical similarity with Wapishana and 20% with Mapidian, and that Wapishana and Mapidian share 10%.[1] Ramirez (2019) considers Atorai to be a dialect of Wapishana.[3]:560

It is spoken by over 6,000 people on both sides of the Guyana-Brazil border.[4]

Language contact

Wapishana and Pemon, a Cariban language, have borrowed heavily from each other due to intensive mutual contact.[3]

Phonology

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive voiceless p t k ʔ
voiced b ɖ ɡ
Affricate tʃ
Nasal m n ɲ
Fricative s ʐ ʃ
Tap ɽ
Approximant w j
  • Consonants /b ɖ ʐ/ in final position are heard as voiceless [p ʈ ʂ].[5]

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i iː ɨ ɨː u uː
Open a aː

Morphology

Wapishana personal affixes:[4]

1 sg.n-/m- -na
2. sg.ɨ-/i- -i
3. sg.ɾ(ɨ/iʔ)- -sɨ
3 refl.a-
1 pl.wa- -wi
2. pl.ɨ- -wiko
3. pl.na- -nu

Wapishana verbal affixes:[4]

thematic-ta, -ɗa, -ɓa
present-e
reciprocal-(a)ka
adjectival-ɾe, -ke

Notes
  1. Wapixana at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Wapixana.
  3. Ramirez, Henri (2019). Enciclopédia das línguas arawak: acrescida de seis novas línguas e dois bancos de dados. (in press)
  4. Meira, Sérgio. 2019. A Study of the Genetic Relation between Mawayana and Wapishana (Arawakan Family). Revista Brasileira de Línguas Indígenas (RBLI), vol. 2, no. 1 (Jan.-Jun. 2019), pp. 70-104.
  5. Gomes dos Santos, (2006).

References
  • Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (1999). "The Arawak language family". In Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R.M.W. (eds.). The Amazonian languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–106.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Gomes dos Santos, Manoel (2006). Uma Gramática do Wapixana (Aruák) – Aspectos da Fonologia, da Morfologia e da Sintaxe (Dissertation). Campinas, SP: Universidade Estadual de Campinas.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Tracy, Frances V. (1974). "An Introduction to Wapishana Verb Morphology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 40 (2): 120–125. doi:10.1086/465294.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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