Bribri, also known as Bri-bri, Bribriwak, and Bribri-wak, is a Chibchan language, from a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...

indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern

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to northern

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and includes populations of those countries as well as

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, and

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. As of 2002, there were about 11,000 speakers left. An estimate by the National Census of Costa Rica in 2011 found that Bribri is currently spoken by 54.7% of the 12,785 Bribri people, about 7,000 individuals. It is a tonal language whose

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

is subject–object–verb. There are three traditional dialects of Bribri: Coroma (in the western region of the Talamanca mountain range), Amubre (in the eastern region of the Talamanca mountain range) and Salitre (in the South Pacific area). ''Bribri'' is a tribal name, deriving from a word for "mountainous" in their own language. The Bribri language is also referred to as ''Su Uhtuk'', which means "our language." Bribri is reportedly most similar to sister language Cabécar as both languages have nasal harmony, but they are

mutually unintelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...

Phonology

Consonants

* /b/ can have allophones of �, m * /d/ can have an allophone of � as well as nasal allophones of �̃, n * /ɟ͡ʝ/ can have an allophone of � * /ɾ/ can have an allophone of * /w, j/ can have nasalised allophones of ̃, j̃

Vowels

I, u and a are pronounced in the same manner as they would be in Spanish. E and o are more open than in Spanish. The sound of ë is between i and e, in the same manner as ö is between u and o. The nasal vowels are pronounced similarly to the corresponding orals, with the addition of some air exiting through the nose.

Alphabet

The Linguistics Department at the University of Costa Rica has conceived a standardized spelling system that is based on several earlier attempts. Bribri skilt

Nasal vowels are indicated by a tilde: (Previously indicated with a macron below: a̱, e̱, i̱, o̱, u̱), except after a nasal consonant (already indicating nasalisation of the vowel). Tones are indicated by the grave accent for the high tone and the acute accent for the low tone; these can also be placed on the nasal vowels.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Portal de la lengua bribri. Bribri texts, audios and transcriptions, by Carla V. Jara and Alí García Segura

Bribri's entry on the WALS

A Bribri course with audio files: Jara Murillo, Carla con Alí García Segura. 2008. Materiales y Ejercicios para el Curso de Bribri I, Universidad de Costa Rica.

Recordings of Bribri conversations and narratives
from the Indigenous Languages of Costa Rica Collection of Laura Cervantes at AILLA. Bribri people Chibchan languages Languages of Costa Rica Tonal languages Subject–object–verb languages {{indigenousAmerican-lang-stub