Arawakan language of South America
Mawayana (Mahuayana), also known as Mapidian (Maopidyán), is a moribund Arawakan language of northern South America. It used to be spoken by Mawayana [nl] people living in ethnic Wai-wai and Tiriyó villages in Brazil, Guyana and Suriname.[5] As of 2015, the last two speakers of the language are living in Kwamalasamutu.
Classification
Aikhenvald (1999) lists Mawayana (and possibly Mawakwa as a dialect) together with Wapishana under a Rio Branco (North-Arawak) branch of the Arawakan family. Carl-in (2006:314) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFCarl-in2006 (help) notes that Mawayana "is closely related to Wapishana" and according to Ramirez (2001:530) they share at least 47% of their lexicon.
Phonology
Mawayana has, among its consonants, two implosives, /ɓ/ and /ɗ/, and what has been described as a "retroflex fricativised rhotic", represented with ⟨rž⟩, that it shares with Wapishana. The vowel systems contains four vowels (/i-e, a, ɨ, u-o/), each of which has a nasalised counterpart.[7]
Consonants
Vowels
Mawayana vowel phonemes:[5]
Vowels have both nasal and length contrast.
Morphology
Morphosyntax
Mawayana has a polysynthetic morphology, mainly head-marking and with suffixes, although there are pronominal prefixes. The verbal arguments are indexed on the verb through subject suffixes on intransitive verbs, while agent prefixes and object suffixes on transitive verbs.: 319
n-kataba-sï
1A-grab.PST-3O
n-kataba-sï
1A-grab.PST-3O
'I grabbed him.'
tõwã-sï
sleep.PST-3S
'He fell asleep.'
nnu a-na mauɗa chika-dza Mawayana
1PN when-1S die NEG-COMPL mawayana
'When I die there will be no Mawayana left at all.'
Notes
- ^ Carlin & Mans 2013:79
- ^ Aikhenvald 1999:69.
- ^ Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices
- ^ a b c d e Meira, Sérgio. 2019. A Study of the Genetic Relation between Mawayana and Wapishana (Arawakan Family) Archived 2021-02-17 at the Wayback Machine. Revista Brasileira de Línguas Indígenas Archived 2019-01-17 at the Wayback Machine (RBLI), vol. 2, no. 1 (Jan.-Jun. 2019), pp. 70-104.
- ^ Carlin (2006:320)
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.
- Carlin, Eithne B (2006). "Feeling the need. The borrowing of Cariban functional categories into Mawayana (Arawak)". In Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R.M.W. (eds.). Grammars in contact: A cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Carlin, Eithne B (2011). "Nested identities in the Southern Guyana-Surinam corner". In Hornborg, Alf; Hill, Jonathan D. (eds.). Ethnicity in ancient Amazonia: Reconstructing past identities from archaeology, linguistics, and ethnohistory. University Press of Colorado. pp. 225–236.
- Carlin, Eithne B; Boven, Karin (2002). "The native population: Migration and identities". In Carlin, Eithne B.; Arends, Jacques (eds.). Atlas of the languages of Suriname. KITLV Press. pp. 11–45.
- Carlin, Eithne B; Mans, Jimmy (2013). "Movement through time in the southern Guianas: deconstructing the Amerindian kaleidoscope". In Carlin, Eithne B.; Leglise, Isabelle; Migge, Bettina; et al. (eds.). In and out of Suriname: Language, mobility, and identity. Caribbean Series. Leiden: Brill.
- Mans, Jimmy; Carlin, Eithne B. (2015). Movement through Time in the Southern Guianas: Deconstructing the Amerindian Kaleidoscope. Leiden: Brill.
- Ramirez, Henri (2001). Línguas Arawak da Amazônia setentrional (in Portuguese). Manaus: Universidade Federal do Amazonas.
External links
- The Last of the Mawayana by Unravel magazine
