Terêna language

Terêna or Etelena is spoken by 15,000 Brazilians. The language has a dictionary and written grammar.^[3] Many Terena people have low Portuguese proficiency. It is spoken in Mato Grosso do Sul. About 20% are literate in their language, 80% literate in Portuguese.^{[citation needed]}

Terena may also refer to TERENA

Terêna
Native to	Brazil
Region	Mato Grosso do Sul
Ethnicity	Terena people
Native speakers	16,000 (2006)[1]
Language family	Arawakan Southern Bolivia–Parana Terêna
Language codes
ISO 639-2	ter
ISO 639-3	Variously: ter – Terena gqn – Kinikinao & Guaná caj – Chané
Glottolog	tere1279
ELP	Terena
	Guana (Brazil)[2]

Terêna has an active–stative syntax^[4] and verb-object-subject as default word order.^[5]

Varieties

Terêna had four varieties: Kinikinao, Terena proper, Guaná, and Chané. These varieties have sometimes been considered to be separate languages.^[6] Carvalho (2016) has since demonstrated all four to be the same language.^[7] Only Terena proper is still spoken.

Language contact

Terena originated in the Northwestern Chaco.^[8] As a result, many Northern Guaicuruan loanwords can be found in Terena.^[9]

There are also many Tupi-Guarani loanwords in Terena and other southern Arawakan languages.^[10]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	(tʃ)	k	ʔ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ		h
	prenasal		ⁿz	ⁿʒ
Nasal		m	n	(ɲ)
Tap			ɾ
Lateral			l	(ʎ)
Approximant		w ~ v		j

/w, ʃ, n, l/ may often be heard as [v, tʃ, ɲ, ʎ].^[11]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ iː	(ɨ)	u ũ uː
Mid	e ẽ eː		o õ oː
	ɛ ɛː		ɔ ɔː
Low		a ã aː

[ɨ] is heard as an allophone of /i/.^[12]

See also

• Terena Sign Language

References

1. Terena at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Kinikinao & Guaná at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Chané at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Endangered Languages Project data for Guana (Brazil).
3. Butler, Nancy Evelyn; Ekdahl, Elizabeth Muriel (1979). Aprenda Terêna, Vol. 1 (in Portuguese). Summer Institute of Linguistics.
4. Aikhenvald, "Arawak", in Dixon & Aikhenvald, eds., The Amazonian Languages, 1999.
5. Rosa, Andréa (2010). Aspectos morfológicos do terena (Aruák) (PDF). pp. 71–72. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-05-13. Retrieved 2024-05-26.
6. Aikhenvald 1999
7. Carvalho, Fernando Orphão de. 2016. Terena, Chané, Guaná and Kinikinau are one and the same language: Setting the Record Straight on Southern Arawak Linguistic Diversity Archived 2023-06-13 at the Wayback Machine. LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas, 16(1), 39-57. doi:10.20396/liames.v16i1.8646165
8. Carvalho, Fernando O. de. 2020. Etymology meets ethnohistory: Linguistic evidence for the pre-historic origin of the Guaná-Chané in the Northwestern Chaco. Anthropological Linguistics.
9. Carvalho, Fernando O. de. 2018. "Arawakan-Guaicuruan Language Contact in The South American Chaco Archived 2023-06-13 at the Wayback Machine." International Journal of American Linguistics 84, no. 2 (April 2018): 243-263. doi:10.1086/696198
10. Carvalho, Fernando O. de. Tupi-Guarani Loanwords in Southern Arawak: Taking Contact Etymologies Seriously Archived 2023-06-13 at the Wayback Machine.
11. Silva, Denise (2013). Estudo Lexicografico da Lingua Terena. Araraquara: Universidade estadual paulista julio de mesquita filho.
12. Nascimento, Gardênia (2012). Aspectos Gramaticais da Língua Terena. Belo Horizonte: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)