Yucuna language

Yucuna (Jukuna), also known as Matapi, Yucuna-Matapi, and Yukunais,^[1] is an Arawakan language spoken in several communities along the Mirití-Paraná River in Colombia.^[2] Extinct Guarú (Garú) was either a dialect or a closely related language. Yucuna is a polysynthetic language, and it uses SVO word order.^[3]

Yucuna
Jukuna
Native to	Colombia
Region	Miritiparaná River
Native speakers	1,800 (2001)[1]
Language family	Arawakan Northern Upper Amazon Western Nawiki Yucuna
Dialects	Guarú † ?
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ycn
Linguist List	qqj (Guarú)
Glottolog	yucu1253  Yucuna guar1294  Guaru
ELP	Yucuna

The Matapi, a Tucanoan people, lived at the headwaters of the Popeyacá and Yapiyá, tributaries to the Miriti River and Apaporis River but most may have been sold as slaves or moved to Brazil. The remainder joined the Yucuna.^[4]

Phonology

The Yucuna phoneme inventory consists of 16 consonants and 5 vowels.^[5]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ ⟨ñ⟩	(ŋ)[a]
Plosive	unaspirated	p	t	t͡ʃ ⟨ch⟩	k ⟨c/qu⟩[b]	ʔ ⟨'⟩
	aspirated	pʰ ⟨ph⟩	tʰ ⟨th⟩
Fricative			s			h ⟨j⟩
Approximant		w ⟨hu⟩	l	j ⟨y⟩
Tap			ɾ ⟨r⟩

1. /ŋ/ occurs as an allophone of /n/ before /k/.
2. /k/ can be written ⟨qu⟩ before front vowels, and ⟨c⟩ otherwise.

See also

• Cariban languages

Notes and references

Notes

1. Yucuna at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Lemus Serrano 2020, p. 1.
3. "Yucuna Language and the Yucuna Indian Tribe (Yukuna, Jucuna, Matapi)". www.native-languages.org. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
4. Moseley, Christopher (2007). Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-1197-0.
5. Schauer, Stanley; Shauer, Junia (1967). Yucuna Phonemics. The Long Now Foundation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Bibliography

• Arias, Leonardo; Emlen, Nicholas Q.; Norder, Sietze; Julmi, Nora; Lemus Serrano, Magdalena; Chacon, Thiago; Wiegertjes, Jurriaan; Howard, Austin; Azevedo, Matheus C. B. C.; Caine, Allison; Dunn, Saskia; Stoneking, Mark; Van Gijn, Rik (2022). "Interpreting mismatches between linguistic and genetic patterns among speakers of Tanimuka (Eastern Tukanoan) and Yukuna (Arawakan)" (PDF). Interface Focus. 13 (20220056). doi:10.1098/rsfs.2022.0056. PMC 9732642. PMID 36655193. S2CID 254409212.
• Lemus Serrano, Magdalena (2020). Pervasive nominalization in Yukuna, an Arawak language of Colombian Amazonia (PDF) (PhD thesis). Université Lumière Lyon 2.

External links

• Resources by ethnographer Laurent Fontaine:
  • Audio recordings in the Yucuna language, in open access (source: Pangloss Collection of CNRS).
  • The Yucuna Indians
  • Corpus of myths and tales (in Yucuna and French)
  • Ethnographic films of the Yucuna Indians with texts of dialogues

• Resources by linguist Magdalena Lemus Serrano:
  • Documentation of Yucuna (source: Endangered Languages Archive).