User:Pjb202/Chimila language

The Chimila language is a Chibchan language spoken in northern Colombia. The Chimila language falls under the Magdalenic branch of the Core Chibchan sub-branch, which itself divides into the Isthmic, and Votic sub-branches of the Chibchan language, which are shared by the Chocoan Tribes category. Chimila language is also referred to sometimes as Barbacoan. The language has also shown evidence of having a numeral classification system. The approximate number of remaining speakers is 1,600. Speakers of the language have been found to share genes with the Amerindian Mayos Mexican population. The language exhibits nasality and uses lexical stems. Its endangerment can be attributed to the standardization of Spanish being the main language, and Chimila only being spoken by the already small Chimilan population.

Classification

The Chimila Amerindians of Sabana de San Angel, have been found to carry the HLA-A,-B,-C,-DRB1 and DQB1 alleles. This is an allele that is very common among Chibchan based language speakers from this area. it has also been found that about 28.7% of Chimila speakers in this region share a halotype gene with the Amerindian Mayos Mexican population, including a small percent of Amerindians from Peru, Bolivia, and the Northern USA. Five other halotype genes have been found to be shared among Chimila Amerindians and certain groups of people found in Taiwan, New Zealand, and Australia.

History

The Chimila language is part of the Chibchan based languages. It comes from the family known as Chibchan Arwako which is considered a proto-Chibchan class. Chimila's closest relative is the Boruca language given that they both diverged from a direct common linguistic ancestor. At one point, Chimila was classified as a Malibu language but later reclassified as a Chibchan language. In 1888, an archaeologist by the name of Max Uhle was the first researchers to classify the Chibchan language family, which included the Chimila language. During the pre-Columbian era, the Chimila people were mostly concentrated in the Cesar River basin, in what is now modern day Cesar state. This area is encompassed by the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serrania del Perija mountain ranges and the Magdalena River.

Geographic Distribution

The Chimila language is a Chibchan language. Chibchan languages have been seen to exist from the southern parts of Central America and extend all the way to the Western end of Venezuela in South America. The Chimila language however, has been seen to pre-dominantly exist in the Northern Andes of Colombia. This area composes mostly of the Colombian states known as Magdalena, Cesar, Norte de Santander, and Santander. The community consists of approximately 1,600 native speakers.

Official Status

No countries have designated this language as its official language.

Dialects/Varieties

The Chimila language is a language that makes part of the Magdalenic branch of the core Chibchan language. The Magdalenic branch further divides into Isthmic and then the Votic branches. Considering the language is also referred to as Barbacoan, it can be considered to be a dialect of the Chimila language. The Chimila language is also very closely related to the Boruca language. The two share a common linguistic ancestor and are derived from the same phylogenetic branch.

Derived Languages

As it stands, no new languages have been derived from Chimila. Since it is an endangered language, not many people speak its use is highly restricted to the local tribes and peoples of the Northern Andean region in Colombia.

Sounds/Phonology

The consonant phonemes of the Chimila language are shown below:

Consonant phonemes

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Alevopalatal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless	p	t			k
Stops
Voiced Stops	b	d			g
Nasals	m	n			n
Fricatives		s				h
Lateral		l
Flaps			f
Glides	w			y

The voiced stops are often prenasalized. Voiceless stops however are nonaspirated. Light nonprenasalized velar voiced stops always come before the labial glides and alveopalatal voiced stops. The three different phonetic lengths of the consonants include short, medium-long, and long. Some instances of the long consonant length can be considered heteromorphemic geminates. The vowel phonemes of the Chimila language are: a, e, i, o, u.

Along with the bimoraic vowels, the vowels just listed previously contrast at the exact same point of articulation. Some vowels can form a monosyllabic geminate cluster, and a disyllabic geminate cluster. One of these such vowels is the /v/ vowel. It can form either just "v" or "vv". The /e/ /o/ and /u/ vowels are lower in their word position. In instances where a vowel is tone-neutral and nonstressed, the /a/ vowel sound is raised slightly. Vowels with a more nasal tone, often contrast the more oral vowels. With Chimila, there are two different types of phonology. These two phonologies include metrical and prosodic phonologies and these two interact very closely with each other.

The primary stress that comes from word pronunciation, often occurs in the first syllable. Word-level stress depends on the phonetical tone pattern of the desired word. In words that have a high and medium tone, the intensity with how the word is said and the frequency at which it is said, shows the initial stress of the word. When this initial stress happens on a geminate vowel cluster, the intensity can either be placed on the first or second vowel. This intensity placement depends on the desired word. When secondary stress occurs, the phonetic tone is slightly higher on the first vowel than the following one.

Grammar

Due to the different dialects of the Chimila language, various Chimila groups speak it with emphasis on different vowels. This causes for a group believing they are the ones who speak it correctly, while outside groups speak it incorrectly. One interesting to note is the fact that words for "tree" and "leaf" have grammatically become morphemes for shape.

Consonants that immediately follow high toned vowels, don't lengthen. If a consonant is to be lengthened, it depends on how many syllables are available for parsing. With an extra syllable available, a troche with a disyllabic bimoric will be made. With no extra syllable available, the consonant in the latest syllable lengthens. This causes for the formation of a monosyllabic bimoriac foot. The consonant when the final syllable is present, it tends to lengthen the grammatical if other bimoriac factors are present. It is also important to mention that syllables including a high tone are highly preferred. A bimoriac is formed when a first-person evidential morpheme has a nasal consonant in the syllable that precedes it. First-person morphemes simply further support that fact that heavy toned syllables are the preferred ones. The high tone in Chimila is very versatile and has many uses. Unspecified tone accompanied with a high tone, both contrast on long vowels. They normally appear in action phrases such as "to pinch: or "to blow". Vowels that have an unspecified tone show more of a level tone.

Vocabulary/Lexis

The Chimila language has impacted the name of the modern day state of Cesar in Colombia. Cesar is a Spanish adaptation of the Chimila word for "calm water" (chet-zar or zazare). Another adaptation of a word from Chimila into Spanish is the word for "donkey". The Chimila word for "donkey" is "bu u ru" while the Spanish word is "burro". The Chimila language mixed with the Spanish that the colonizers brought from Spain. For the most part, Chimila and Spanish only share a few borrowed words from each other. The vocabulary in the Chimila language has varying specificities to it. Many words mean many things and depending on the inflection and tone of the word, it's meaning can change. The intonation of the pitch overlays the word-level tone patterns and it places a restriction on the syntactical positions of nouns. Lexical stress results in the stress of the primary word. Putative lexical stress on the second syllable of words that start with "CVC" result in more of a phonetic tone. The contrast caused by tonal stress is not limited to bimoraic vowels. it can also occur in multisyllable words that have mono-moraic vowels.

Writing System

The writing in many Mesoamerican languages, including Chibchan based languages like Chimila, include the combined use of hieroglyphics and latin based words.

Examples

The word for "crocodile" in the Chimila language is as follows:

/són/

When the word is spoken in isolation, the length of the vowel is elongated.

The phrase for "to be sad" in the Chimila language is as follows:

/kréyà nákà/

The word for "round" in the Chimila language is as follows:

/brabrada/

The phrase for "to smash above" in the Chimila Language is as follows:

/sãmata/

References

1. Auwera, J.v.d., Krasnoukhova, O. (2020, April 22). Standard negation in Chibchan. LIAMES, Campinas, SP, v. 20, 1-27, e020005, 2020
2. Bellamy, K. (2018, Jan/Jun). Re-evaluating the ‘numeral classifier’ system in Mochica. LIAMES 18(1): 81-98 - Campinas.
3. Birchall, J.T.R. (2014). Argument Marking Patterns in South American Languages. Utretch.
4. Dixon, R. (1921). Words for Tobacco in American Indian Languages. American Anthropologist, 23(1), new series, 19-49. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/660704
5. Malone, T. (2010, January 10). NASALITY AND NASAL PROSODY IN CHIMILA [PDF]. Latin American Mission/FUSBC Medellín.
6. Malone, T. (2006, January). Tone and Syllable Structure in Chimila. IJAL, vol. 72, p.1-58
7. Muller, A., et. al. (2009, April). ASJP World Language Tree of Lexical Similarity: Version 2.
8. Pache, M. (2016, October 4). The Grammaticalization of Plant-Part Terms In Chibchan Languages [PDF]. The University of Chicago.
9. Vargas, J.C.N (2009). Sistema de Clases y Principio De Paridad: Observaciones Linguisticas y Etnograpgicas Sobre el Systema De Numeracion Ette(Chimila). Linguistica Chibcha, 75-108
10. Villena, A. A., & Gruber, J. P. (2018, April). HLA in North Colombia Chimila Amerindians [PDF]. Human Immunology.