Carapana language

Not to be confused with Andoquero language.

Carapano (Karapanã, Carapana-tapuya, Möxdöá) is a Tucanoan language of Colombia and Brazil.

Carapano
Mõxtã
Native to	Colombia, Brazil
Native speakers	500 (2012)
Language family	Tucanoan Eastern Central Tatuyo–Carapano Carapano
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cbc
Glottolog	cara1272
ELP	Carapana

Phonology

Carapano has 11 consonants.

Consonants of Carapano

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d		g
Fricative			s
Tap			ɾ
Approximant		w		j		h

• /p, t, k/ alternate with /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/.
• /b, d, g/ become [m, n, ŋ] before nasal vowels. They become [ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑg] after nasal vowels.
• /b, d/ alternate with [ᵐb, ⁿd] at the beginning of a word, e.g., báì /báì/ [báì]~[ᵐbáì] 'younger brother'.
• /s/ alternates with /t͡s/.
• /ɾ/ has three variants
  • /n̆/ next to nasal vowels
  • /ɺ/ before oral vowels, at the beginning of a word, and
  • /ɾ/ elsewhere.
• /w, h/ are often [β, x] before front vowels.
• /j/ alternates with pre-stopped [ᵈj].
• /w, j, h/ become [w̃, j̃, h̃] before nasal vowels.

It also has 6 vowels and their nasalized forms, plus high and low tones.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ	ɨ ɨ̃	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ		o õ
Open		a ã

• The mid vowels /e, ẽ, o, õ/ are phonetically [ɛ, ɛ̃, ɔ, ɔ̃].
• Mid tone is an allotone of the low tone.

Orthography

Metzger and Metzger use the following orthography.

IPA	Orthography
a	a
e	e
i	i
o	o
u	u
ɨ	ʉ
ã	ã
ẽ	ẽ
ĩ	ĩ
õ	õ
ũ	ũ
ɨ̃	ʉ̃
b	b, m
d	d, n
j	y, ñ
g	g, gu
h	j
k	c, qu
p	p
r	r
s	s
t	t
w	w
◌́	◌́
◌̀	not marked

Works cited

• Metzger, Ronald; Metzger, Lois (1973). "Fonología del carapana". Sistemas fonológicos de idiomas columbianos (in Spanish). Vol. 2. Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. pp. 121–132.