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Itonama language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Itonama
sihni pandara
Native toBolivia
RegionBeni Department
Ethnicity2,900 (2006)[1]
Native speakers
1 (2012)[1]
Latin
Official status
Official language in
 Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-3ito
Glottologiton1250
ELPItonama
Itonama is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Itonama is a moribund language isolate once spoken by the Itonama people in the Amazonian lowlands of north-eastern Bolivia. It was spoken on the Itonomas River and Lake[2] in Beni Department.

In Magdalena town on the western bank of the Itonama River (a tributary of the Iténez River), located in Iténez Province, only a few elderly people remember a few words and phrases.[3]: 483 

Language contact

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Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Nambikwaran languages due to contact.[4]

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[5] found lexical similarities between Itonama and Movima, likely due to contact.

Phonology

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Vowels

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Front Central Back
High i ɨ
⟨ï⟩
u
Mid e ~ ɛ
⟨e⟩
o
Low a
⟨a⟩

Diphthongs: /ai au/ ⟨ay aw⟩.

Consonants

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Bilabial Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive/
Affricate
plain p t ~ ts
⟨ch⟩

⟨ty⟩
k
⟨k⟩
ʔ
⟨’⟩
ejective tʃʼ ~ tsʼ
⟨chʼ⟩

⟨kʼ⟩
voiced b d
Fricative s h
Liquid lateral l
rhotic ɾ
⟨r⟩
Semivowel w ~ β
⟨w⟩
j
⟨y⟩

The postalveolar affricates /tʃ tʃʼ/ have alveolar allophones [ts tsʼ]. Variation occurs between speakers, and even within the speech of a single person.

The semivowel /w/ is realized as a bilabial fricative [β] when preceded and followed by identical vowels.[6]

Morphology

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Itonama is a polysynthetic, head-marking, verb-initial language with an accusative alignment system along with an inverse subsystem in independent clauses, and straightforward accusative alignment in dependent clauses.

Nominal morphology lacks case declension and adpositions and so is simpler than verbal morphology (which has body-part and location incorporation, directionals, evidentials, verbal classifiers, among others).[7]

Vocabulary

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Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Itonama.[2] They are shown here alongside the forms cited in the Intercontinental Dictionary Series (IDS).

gloss Itonama (Loukotka) Itonama (IDS)
one chash-káni ukʼa’ne
two chash-chupa -chupa
tooth huomóte ohwomotʼe
tongue páchosníla ohpochosnila
hand mapára uhmaʼpara
woman ubíka wabï’ka
water huanúhue wanu’we
fire ubári ubari
moon chakakáshka u’tyahka’ka’ka
maize udáme
jaguar ótgu
house úku uku

See also

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Further reading

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  • Camp, E. L.; Liccardi, M. R. (1967). Itonama, castellano e inglés. (Vocabularios Bolivianos, 6.) Riberalta: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

References

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  1. ^ a b Itonama at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ a b Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
  3. ^ Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume I: Aikanã to Kandozi-Chapra. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-041940-5.
  4. ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
  5. ^ Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
  6. ^ Mily Crevels (16 January 2023), "11", Itonama, pp. 483–546, doi:10.1515/9783110419405-011, Wikidata Q130412541
  7. ^ Crevels, M. Who did what to whom in Magdalena. p. 3.
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