Northern Embera language

Northern Emberá, also known as West Embera and Cholo, is the largest Embera language. It is spoken largely in Colombia, but is also the principal language of the Darién Gap in Panama.The Emberá language is divided into two branches: Northern and Southern. Two prominent Northern groups are Emberá Darien and Catío. The Catío language is spoken by 10,000 - 20,000 people, whose literacy rate is at 1%. The Darien Emberá language is spoken by 9,000-10,000 people.

Northern Embera
Cholo
Native to	Colombia, Panama
Native speakers	72,000 (2001–2012)[1]
Language family	Chocoan Emberá Northern Northern Embera
Language codes
ISO 639-3	emp
Glottolog	nort2972
ELP	Northern Emberá

Classification

Northern Emberá is a dialect that comes from Embera which is part of the Chocó family. The Chocó family includes two languages, Waunana and the group of the Emberá dialects. The Emberá dialects form a dialectal continuum with two geographically defined subgroups: the Northern branch contains the Proper Northern Emberá (referred to as ‘Northern Emberá’ in Mortensen 1999)^[2] and the Catío dialect.

History

The Waunanas and Emberás are the last remnants of a larger group of Pre-Columbian ethnic groups, such as the Orominas, the Chancos, the Guarras, the Burrumías, that were diminished during the Colonial period. Genetic findings show that the speakers of Chocó languages are genetically differentiated from the Chibcha speaking tribes of Northern Colombia and cluster with the Orinoquian and Amazonian indigenous populations. Waunana and Emberá share a large number of cognates (estimated to 50% by Loewen 1960: 12), which provide evidence for their common origin. However, there is no clear evidence in terms of a sufficient number of cognates for a common origin of Chocó with other South or Central American families.

Geographic Distribution

The majority of the Catío language are found along the Upper Sinu, San Jorge, San Pedro and Murri Rivers of northwestern Colombia with a few living in Panama. The majority of Darien Embera speakers live in Panama with approximately 2,000 living in northwestern Colombia on the Atrato River.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	plain	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ		ɠ
Fricative			s			h
Affricate			t͡s	t͡ʃ	k͡x
Nasal		m	n
Rhotic	trill		r
	tap		ɾ
Semivowel		w		j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ		ɯ ɯ̃	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ		o õ
Low		a ã

^[3]

Grammar

Phoneme Inventory

Catío's phoneme inventory contains 16 consonants (p, t, dɮ , t͡ʃʼ, k, b, d, g, s, h, m, n, r, u) and 6 vowels, both oral and nasal (a, e, i, o, u, ɨ). Darien Embera's phoneme inventory contains 17 consonants (p, t, k, b, d, dɮ, t͡ʃʼ, g, s, h, z, r, t, w, j) and 6 vowels, oral and nasal (a, e, i, o, u, ɨ).

Syntax

The Chocó languages show the properties of head-final languages: OV order, postpositions, embedded verbs preceding matrix verbs. At the clausal level, the basic order is SOV with some flexibility used for discourse purposes.

Noun phrase

The neutral order in the noun phrase is: [DP D [QP [AP [NP N] A ] Q ]. Determiners (D) precede the noun (N), while adjectives (A) and quantifiers (Q) are postnominal in the neutral configuration. Determiners include demonstratives, some indexical elements, as well as the definite determiner. The definite article is also used for the nominalization of non-nominal constituents.

Verbs

Verb clusters are linearized in a head-final pattern. The auxiliary follows the lexical verb, and the matrix verb follows the embedded verb. With non-verbal predicates, the auxiliary follows the predicative element. For example:

Northern Emberá:

Ẽpẽrã-ra

person-ABS

porekea

fat

b-ɯ-a.

be-PRS-DECL

Ẽpẽrã-ra porekea b-ɯ-a.

person-ABS fat be-PRS-DECL

‘The man is fat.’

Reduplication

Reduplication is very productive and may be total, or partial. It is frequently used for the derivation of adjectives, and verbs. Verbs formed through reduplication have an iterative or durative interpretation. Reduplication is used to lessen the intensity of both verbs and adjectives.

p’ãwãrã ‘blue’	→	p’ãwã~p’ãwãrã ‘greenish-blue’
ip’ida ‘(to) laugh’	→	ip’ida~ip’ida ‘(to) smile’
pía ‘good’	→	pi~ʔia ‘very well’

Nasalization

In Chocó languages, the nasal feature spreads throughout a nasal morpheme, affecting vowels, sonorants and voiced obstruents. In Northern Emberá, regressive nasalization is reported to appear only with some speakers. The domain of nasalization is blocked by voiceless obstruents as well as by the multiple vibrant /r/.

Numbers

Number is marked on nouns and verbs. The singular is generally unmarked, while the plural is overtly marked. Within the noun phrase, plural is marked on the head, which is either a noun or a pronoun. Nominal plural is encoded by the morpheme -rã in Emberá. The plural suffix is highly integrated to the verbal inflection such that its form depends on tense; Northern Emberá -ta ‘PL’ in present/habitual and -da ‘PL’ in the past tense.

Tense

Northern Emberá and Catío make a clear distinction (immediate vs. unspecified temporal distance) in those tenses in which the event time point does not coincide with the speech time point (past and future) For example:

Northern Emberá

wã-toko-a

go-IMM_PST-DECL

‘s/he just left’

 

 

 

vs.

 

 

 

 

 

wã-podo-a

go-IMM_FUT-DECL

‘s/he is about to leave’

wã-toko-a {} vs. {} wã-podo-a

go-IMM_PST-DECL {} {} {} go-IMM_FUT-DECL

{‘s/he just left’} {} {} {} {‘s/he is about to leave’}

Orthography

Northern Embera is written in two similar orthographies: one is used in Panama, and the other is used in Colombia.^[4]

IPA	PA		CO		remarks
[a]	a		a
[ã]	ã		ã
[b]	b	v	b
[ɓ]	b̶		ɓ
[d]	d		d
[ɗ]	d̶		ɗ
[d͡ʒ]	dy		dj
[e]	e		e
[ẽ]	ẽ		ẽ
[g]	g		g
[h]	j		—
[i]	i		i
[ĩ]	ĩ		ĩ
[j]	y		y	j
[k]	k		qu	c	"qu" used before "e", "ẽ", "i", "ĩ", "ʉ", and "ʉ̃"; "c" used in other cases
[l]	l		—
[m]	m		m
[ɯ][ʉ]	ʌ		ʉ
[ɯ̃][ʉ̃]	ʌ̃		ʉ̃
[n]	n		n
[o]	o		o
[õ]	õ		õ
[p]	p		p
[r]	rr		—
[r~ɾ]	r		r
[s]	s		s
[t]	t		t
[t͡ʃ]	ch		ch
[u]	u		u
[ũ]	ũ		ũ
[w]	w		w
[z]	z		z

Example of Words

Words	Catío	Embera Darien		Words	Catío	Embera Darien
Heart	So	So		River	Do	Do
River channel	Dodú	Do nerả
Person	Ẽbẽrả	Ẽpẽrɑ̃		Soft (ground)	Sosoá	Susúa
Son in law	Wigú	Wigu		House	De	De
Woman	Wḗrɑ̃	Wḗrɑ̃		Seat	Buge	Ãpugé
Husband	Kĥimá	Kĥimá		Bedsheet	Buɾubá	Poɾoɓá
Wife	Kĥimá	Kĥimá		Dog	Usá	Usá
Father	Zéze	Zeza		Cebus Monkey	Amisurá	Misurrá
Mother	Pĥápĥa	Pĥápĥa		Opossum	Bosãi	Posải
Water	Bánia	Báido		Chonta Palm	Meme'	Memé

Numbers

	Catío	Embera Darien
One	Ába	Aɓá
Two	Umé	Umé
Three	Ũbéa	Õpeá
Four	Kĥimárẽ	Kĥimárẽ
Five	Wesomá	Huesomá

Further reading

• Aguirre Licht, Daniel 2009. ‘Choco languages’, in Brown, Keith and Sarah Ogilvie (eds.). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Amsterdam: Elsevier,
• Binder, Ronald E. 1977. ‘Thematic linkage in Waunana discourse’. In Robert E. Longacre and Frances Woods (eds.), Discourse grammar: Studies in indigenous languages of Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador, part 2. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington,
• Hajek, John 2013. ‘Vowel nasalization’, in Dryer, Matthew S. and Martin Haspelmath (eds.). The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online at: http://wals.info/chapter/10
• Reich, David, Nick Patterson, Desmond Campbell, Arti Tandon, Stéphane Mazieres, Nicolas Ray, Maria V. Parra, Winston Rojas, Constanza Duque, Natalia Mesa, et al. 2012 ‘Reconstructing Native American population history’, Nature

Notes

1. Northern Embera at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Mortensen, Charles A. 1999. A Reference Grammar of the Northern Emberá Languages. Dallas: SIL International
3. Hoyos Benítez, Mario Edgar. 2000. Informe sobre la lengua embera del Río Napipí. In María Stella González de Pérez and María Luisa Rodríguez de Montes (eds.), Lenguas indígenas de Colombia: Una visión descriptiva. Bogotá: Instituto Cara y Cuervo.
4. "Northern Embera language and pronunciation". Omniglot. Retrieved 28 January 2021.