Iñapari language

Iñapari is a critically endangered indigenous South American language spoken by just four people in Peru along the Las Piedras river near the mouth of the Sabaluyoq river. The language is already extinct in neighboring Bolivia. All four remaining speakers are bilingual in Spanish and none of their children and grand children spoke the language, which will likely lead to its extinction once the speakers die. The Iñapari language currently has a published dictionary.^[2]

Iñapari
Native to	Peru
Native speakers	(4 cited 1999)[1]
Language family	Arawakan Southern Piro Iñapari
Official status
Official language in	Peru
Language codes
ISO 639-3	inp
Glottolog	inap1242
ELP	Iñapari
Iñapari is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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The Pacaguara (Pacahuara) dialect described by Mercier was at least ethnically distinct. (But see Pacaguara language.)

Phonology

According to Parker, Iñapari has eleven consonants and six vowels.^[2]

Iñapari Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Glottal
Nasals	m	n
Plosives	p	t		ʔ
Fricatives		s		h
Liquids		(l) ~ ɾ
Glides	w		j

The status of the lateral as a phoneme is considered dubious as [l] is found in few words and may be a phonetic variant of /r/.

Iñapari's six vowels are /i e a ï o u/, where /ï/ is a high back unrounded vowel.

Grammar

^[3]

Nouns

The only two features associated with nominals are gender and possession.

Nouns are divided into two genders: masculine and feminine. Animate nouns can also take a neutral gender when the actual gender is irrelevant to the utterance.

Possession is marked by prefixes and follows the inherent/non-inherent strategy.

Adjectives

It is unclear whether Iñapari has a distinct category of adjectives. Adjectives agree in gender with nominal heads and always follow them.

Numerals

Only 20 cardinal numbers and 2 ordinal numbers are attested. The available data suggest that the number system derives cardinal numbers from body parts.

Verbs

Verbs agree with subjects and objects through pronominal prefixes and suffixes, respectively. Suffixes also indicate volitional and non-volitional causation.

Notes

1. Iñapari at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Parker, Steve (1999). "A Sketch of Iñapari Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 65 (1). University of Chicago Press: 1–39. doi:10.1086/466374. JSTOR 1265971. S2CID 144667241.
3. Rogers, Chris (2021). "Salient morphosyntactic patterns of Iñapari". Language Documentation and Description. 20. EL Publishing: 86–122. doi:10.25894/ldd38.

External links

• Ethnologue language map, Iñapari has reference number 40