Cha'palaa (also known as Chachi or Cayapa) is a
Barbacoan language
Barbacoan (also Barbakóan, Barbacoano, Barbacoana) is a language family spoken in Colombia and Ecuador.
Genealogical relations
The Barbacoan languages may be related to the Páez language. Barbacoan is often connected with the Paezan languages ...
spoken in northern
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...
by ca. 3000 ethnic
Chachi people.
"Cha'palaa" means "language of the
Chachi people." This language was described in part by the missionary P. Alberto Vittadello, who, by the time his description was published in
Guayaquil
, motto = Por Guayaquil Independiente en, For Independent Guayaquil
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Ecuador#South America
, pushpin_re ...
,
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...
in 1988, had lived for seven years among the tribe.
Cha'palaa has
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
morphology, with a Subject-Object-Verb word order.
Cha'palaa is written using the Latin alphabet, making use of the following graphemes:
A, B, C, CH, D, DY, E, F, G, GU, HU, I, J, L, LL, M, N, Ñ, P, QU, R, S, SH, T, TS, TY, U, V, Y, and '
The writing system includes four simple vowels, and four double vowels:
Phonology
Cha'palaa has four vowels: /a, e, i, u/.
Cha'palaa has 22 consonant phonemes.
References
External links
Native Languages on Cha'palaachi, with linksCayapa(
Intercontinental Dictionary Series
The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary A ...
)
Agglutinative languages
Languages of Ecuador
Barbacoan languages
Endangered Barbacoan languages
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