Muinane is an indigenous American language spoken in Colombia.

Muinane
Muìnánɨ
Native toColombia
RegionPuerto Santander, Amazonas; between Caquetá River and Yari River in Caquetá Department
Ethnicity2,100 (2018)[1]
Native speakers
150 (2007)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3bmr
Glottologmuin1242
ELPMuinane
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Classification

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

Geographic distribution

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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.

Phonology

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Consonants

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Muinane consonant phonemes
Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar/
Palatal
Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive p b t d k ɡ ʔ
Affricate
Fricative ɸ β s ʃ j x
Trill r
  • Voiceless stops and affricates contrast with their geminate counterparts: tʃː tʲː .

Vowels

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Muinane vowel phonemes
Front Central Back
High i ɨ u
Low ɛ a o

Tone

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There are two tones in Muinane: high and low.

Grammar

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

Vocabulary

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Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Muinane.[2]

English Muinane
one sánótro
two minóke
head nígai
eye adíge
tooth ígaino
man gáife
water negfuáyu
fire köxögai
sun neʔegbua
maize bédya
jaguar höku

Writing System

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

Latin IPA Latin IPA Latin IPA Latin IPA Latin IPA Latin IPA
a /a/ b /b/ c /k/-/s/ ch /tʃ/ d /d/ e /e/
f /ɸ/ g(u) /ɡ/-/x/ h /ʔ/ i /i/ ɨ /ɨ/ j /x/
ll /dʒ/ m /m/ n /n/ ñ /ɲ/ o /o/ p /p/
qu /k/ r /r/ z /s/ s /ʃ/ t /t/ u /u/
v /β/ y /j/
  • 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.

References

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  1. ^ a b Muinane at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Loukotka was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Sources

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  • 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