The Cubeo language (also spelled Cuveo) is the language spoken by the

Cubeo people The Cubeo are an ethnic group of the Vaupés Department (Colombia). Cubeo is a generic name that is used in local Spanish and appears in the literature in reference to a social and linguistic group. Although the term does not have any meaning in ...

in the

Vaupés Department Vaupés may refer to: * Vaupés River Vaupés River (Uaupés River) is a tributary of the Rio Negro in South America. It rises in the Guaviare Department of Colombia, flowing east through Guaviare and Vaupés Departments. It forms part of the int ...

, the Cuduyari and Querarí Rivers and their tributaries in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, and in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. It is a member of the central branch of the

Tucanoan languages Tucanoan (also Tukanoan, Tukánoan) is a language family of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru. Language contact Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Arutani, Paez, Sape, Taruma, Witoto-Okaina, Saliba-Hodi, ...

. Cubeo has borrowed a number of words from the

Nadahup languages The Naduhup languages, also known as Makú (Macú) or ''Vaupés–Japurá'', form a small language family in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The name '' Makú'' is pejorative, being derived from an Arawakan word meaning "without speech". ''Na ...

, and its grammar has apparently been influenced by

Arawak languages Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...

. The language has been variously described as having a

subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...

or an object–verb–subject word order, the latter very rare cross-linguistically. It is sometimes called ''Pamiwa'', the ethnic group's autonym, but it is not to be confused with the

Pamigua language Pamigua (sometimes called Pamiwa) is an extinct language of Colombia, related to Tinigua. It was spoken at the mission of San Concepción de Arauca in Colombia. References Tiniguan languages Extinct languages of South America {{na ...

, sometimes called Pamiwa.

Writing system

Phonology

Vowels

There are six oral vowels and six

nasal vowels A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced witho ...

. is pronounced as in ''roses''.

Consonants

Unusually, Cubeo has a velar fricative /x/ but no strident fricative /s/. When older Cubeos use Spanish loans with /s/, they pronounce it as before vowels. The /s/ deletes in word-final position in loans as in < Sp. Jesús 'Jesus' (c.f.

Colombian Spanish Colombian Spanish (Spanish language, Spanish: ''español colombiano'') is a grouping of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of ...

Stress

The stressed

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...

is the first syllable with high tone in the phonological word (usually the second syllable of the word). Stress (and by extension, the position of the first high-tone syllable) is contrastive.

Nasality

Most morphemes belong to one of three categories: # Nasal (many roots, as well as suffixes like ''-xã'' 'associative') # Oral (many roots, as well as suffixes like ''-pe'' 'similarity', ''-du'' 'frustrative') # Unmarked (only suffixes, e.g. -''RE'' 'in/direct object') No root is unmarked with respect to this nasal/oral division, but some roots are partially oral and nasal, 'to defecate'. Suffixes that begin with consonants without nasal allophones may be only nasal or oral, not unmarked, but suffixes that begin with consonants that have nasal allophones () may belong to any of the three classes above. It is impossible to predict the class to which a nasalizable consonant-initial suffix may belong. There are some suffixes that are partially oral and partially nasal, like -kebã 'suppose'.Morse & Maxwell 1999, pp. 7, 43 There is no case in modern Cubeo in which -kebã is divided into separate oral and nasal suffixes.

Nasal assimilation

Nasality spreads rightward from the nasal vowel, nasalizing all oral vowels within a word if they are not nasal and all intervening consonants can be nasalized () : bu-bI-ko : : : 'She recently studied.' Unlike the previous example, in the next one, nasality spreads from the initial vowel to the following one, but it is blocked from the third syllable by a non-nasalizable : : dĩ-bI-ko : : : 'She recently went.' Nasal spreading is blocked by underlyingly oral suffixes or vowels that are underlyingly oral in a nasal/oral morpheme.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

WALS entry for Cubeo

at ''Omniglot'' {{Languages of Colombia Tucanoan languages Languages of Colombia Languages of Brazil Indigenous languages of South America Subject–object–verb languages