Bribri language

Bribri, also known as Bri-bri, Bribriwak, and Bribri-wak, is a Chibchan language, from a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of those countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. As of 2002, there were about 11,000 speakers left. An estimate by the National Census of Costa Rica in 2011 found that Bribri is currently spoken by 54.7% of the 12,785 Bribri people, about 7,000 individuals. It is a tonal language whose word order is subject–object–verb.

Bribri
Talamanca
Native to	Costa Rica.
Region	Limón province: Talamanca cantón, along Lari, Telire, and Uren rivers; Puntarenas province: Buenos Aires cantón
Ethnicity	12,200 Bribri (2000)
Native speakers	7,000 (2011)
Language family	Chibchan Talamanca Bribri
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Costa Rica
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bzd
Glottolog	brib1243
ELP	Bribri

Map showing dialects of Bribri

There are three traditional dialects of Bribri: Coroma (in the western region of the Talamanca mountain range), Amubre (in the eastern region of the Talamanca mountain range) and Salitre (in the South Pacific area). Bribri is a tribal name, deriving from a word for "mountainous" in their own language. The Bribri language is also referred to as Su Uhtuk, which means "our language." Bribri is reportedly most similar to sister language Cabécar as both languages have nasal harmony, but they are mutually unintelligible.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n		ɲ
Plosive	p   b		t   d			k	ʔ
Affricate		t͡k	t͡s	t͡ʃ	ɟ͡ʝ
Fricative			s	ʃ			h
Flap			ɾ
Glide	w				j

• /b/ can have allophones of [β, m].
• /d/ can have an allophone of [ɽ], as well as nasal allophones of [ɽ̃, n].
• /ɟ͡ʝ/ can have an allophone of [ɲ].
• /ɾ/ can have an allophone of [r].
• /w, j/ can have nasalised allophones of [w̃, j̃].

Vowels

I, u and a are pronounced in the same manner as they would be in Spanish. E and o are more open than in Spanish. The sound of ë is between i and e, in the same manner as ö is between u and o. The nasal vowels are pronounced similarly to the corresponding orals, with the addition of some air exiting through the nose.

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
High	oral	i		u
	nasal	ĩ		ũ
Near-high		ɪ		ʊ
Mid-low	oral	ɛ		ɔ
	nasal	ɛ̃		ɔ̃
Low	oral		a
	nasal		ã

Spanish examples of oral vowels:

yì ¿quién?		ù casa
yë padre, papá		tö sí
ye' yo		só cucaracha
	awá médico

Spanish examples of nasal vowels:

mĩ madre, mamá		ũ olla
sẽ eso, ese		mõ nube
	ã en; para

Alphabet

The Linguistics Department at the University of Costa Rica has conceived a standardized spelling system that is based on several earlier attempts.

Bribri sign in a restaurant in Bribrí in Talamanca, Costa Rica. Translation: "I'm hungry, I'm going to eat."

Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)

A

B

D

CH

E

Ë

I

J

K

L

M

N

Ñ

O

Ö

P

PP

R

RR

S

SH

T

TT

TCH

TS

U

Y

ʼ

Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)

a

b

d

ch

e

ë

i

j

k

l

m

n

ñ

o

ö

p

pp

r

rr

s

sh

t

tt

tch

ts

u

y

ʼ

Nasal vowels are indicated by a tilde: ⟨ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ⟩ (Previously indicated with a macron below: a̱, e̱, i̱, o̱, u̱), except after a nasal consonant (already indicating nasalisation of the vowel).

Tones are indicated by the grave accent for the high tone and the acute accent for the low tone; these can also be placed on the nasal vowels.

See also

• Bribri Sign Language

Bibliography

• Constenla Umaña, Adolfo; Feliciano Elizondo Figueroa; Francisco Pereira Mora (1998). Curso básico de bribri. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica.
• Constenla Umaña, Adolfo (1991). Las lenguas del área intermedia: Introducción a su estudio areal. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica.
• Constenla Umaña, Adolfo (2008). "Estado actual de la subclasificación de las lenguas chibchenses y de la reconstrucción fonológica y gramatical del protochibchense". Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha. 27. San José, Costa Rica: 117–135.
• García Miguel; José María (1999). "La expresión de actantes centrales en español (romance) y bribri (chibcha): tipología, discurso y cognición" (PDF). Actas do 1º Encontro de Lingüística Cognitiva. Faculdade de Letras do Porto: 101–121.
• Jara Murillo; Carla Victoria (1993). I ttè. Historias bribris. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica.
• Jara Murillo; Carla Victoria (2013). "Morfología verbal de la lengua bribri". Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha. 32. San José, Costa Rica: 95–152.
• Jara Murillo; Carla Victoria; Alí García Segura (1997). Kó késka. El lugar del tiempo. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica.
• Jara Murillo; Carla Victoria; Alí García Segura (2009). Se' ẽ' yawö bribri wa. Aprendemos la lengua bribri. San José, Costa Rica: Universidad de Costa Rica – UNICEF.
• Jara Murillo; Carla Victoria; Alí García Segura (2013). Se' ttö́ bribri ie. Hablemos en bribri. San José, Costa Rica: E-Digital.
• Krohn, Haakon Stensrud (2014). "Semántica de los clasificadores numerales en el bribri de Coroma". Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha. 33. San José, Costa Rica: 209–239.
• Margery Peña, Enrique (1982). Diccionario fraseológico bribri–español español–bribri. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica.
• Quesada, J. Diego (2007). The Chibchan languages. Cartago, Costa Rica: Editorial Tecnológica de Costa Rica.
• Sánchez Avendaño, Carlos (2009). "La voz media en bribri y la hipótesis de la elaboración relativa de los eventos". Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha. 28. San José, Costa Rica: 47–73.
• Tohsaku, Y.-H. (1987). "Bribri nasal harmony from the vantage point of the universal theory of harmony". Working Papers of the Linguistic Circle of the University of Victoria. 6 (1): 1–10.

External links

• Portal de la lengua bribri. Bribri texts, audios and transcriptions, by Carla V. Jara and Alí García Segura
• Bribri's entry on the WALS
• A Bribri course with audio files: Jara Murillo, Carla con Alí García Segura. 2008. Materiales y Ejercicios para el Curso de Bribri I, Universidad de Costa Rica.
• Recordings of Bribri conversations and narratives from the Indigenous Languages of Costa Rica Collection of Laura Cervantes at AILLA.