Guahibo language

Guahibo, the native language of the Guahibo people, is a Guahiban language that is spoken by about 23,006 people in Colombia and additional 8,428 in Venezuela. There is a 40% rate of monolingualism, and a 45% literacy rate.

Sounds

Stress

Guahibo has a unique and complex stress system with both primary and secondary stress. The stress system shows a sensitivity to syllable weight so that heavy syllables are always stressed. Both contrasting trochaic and iambic patterns are found on morphemes in nonfinal morphemes with more than two syllables:

:

The binary feet are parsed from left to right within each morpheme. Morphemes with an odd number of syllables leave the final syllable unstressed (and unparsed into feet):

:

Morphemes that consist of two syllables and are also word-final are an exception to the above and only have the trochaic pattern:

:

These morphemes alternate with an iambic pattern when placed in a nonfinal context. Thus ''náwa'' keeps its trochaic pattern with the addition of a single light syllable morpheme like ''-ta'' "in":

: ''náwa'' + ''-ta'' → ''náwata'' ('LL)L

However, an iambic word show its underlying iamb when it is followed by ''-ta'':

: ''púca'' + ''-ta'' → ''pucáta'' (L'L)L

Affixation generally does not affect the stress pattern of each morpheme.

Heavy syllables since they are required to be stressed disrupt perfect trochaic and iambic rhythms. However, morphemes with a sequence of at least two light syllables show contrasting stress patterns:

:

Primary Stress. Primary stress generally falls on the rightmost nonfinal foot. For example, the following word

: (ˌLL)(ˈLL)L (''pà.lu'').(''pá.lu'').ma'' "rabbit"

has primary stress on the rightmost foot (''pa.lu'') which is not word-final. However, the rightmost foot (''qui.si'') in

: (LˈL)(LˌL) (''tu.lí'').(''qui.sì'') "bead necklace"

is word-final and cannot receive primary stress; the primary stress then falls on the next rightmost foot (''tu.li''). Placing a light syllable suffix ''-ta'' "with" after a four syllable root shows shifting of primary stress:

: (LˈL)(LˌL) ''tsapánilù'' "species of turtle"
: (LˌL)(LˈL)L ''tsapànilúta'' "with the turtle"

With the addition of the suffix, the root-final foot (''ni.lu'') is no longer word-final and is subsequently permitted to accept primary stress.

Writing system

Phonology

A /w/ sound can also range to a /β/ sound within words.

Sounds /, / can have allophones of Vowels can also be nasalized as � ĩ ẽ õ ũ ɨ̃

Bibliography

* Kondo, Riena. (1984). Notas sobre la fonología guahiba. ''Sistemas fonológicos de idiomas colombianos'', ''5'', 205–211.
* Kondo, Riena. (1985). Contribución al estudio de longitud vocálica y el acento en el idioma guahiba. ''Artículos en lingüística y campos afines'', ''13'', 55–82.
* Kondo, Riena. (1985). ''El guahibo hablado: Gramática pedagógica del guahibo'' (Vols. 1–2). Lomalinda, Colombia: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
* Kondo, Riena. (1985). Long vowels and stress in Guahibo: From phonology to discourse. In ''Language data: Amerindian series'' (Vol. 9, 43–56). Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
* Kondo, Riena. (2001). Guahibo stress: Both trochaic and iambic. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''67'' (2), 136–166.
* Kondo, Victor; & Kondo, Riena. (1967). Guahibo phonemes. In ''Phonemic systems of Colombian languages'' (pp. 89–98). Norman, OK: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
* Kondo, Victor; & Kondo, Riena. (1972). Fonemas del guahibo. ''Sistemas fonológicos de idiomas colombianos'', ''1'', 93–102.
* Mosonyi, Esteban Emilio. (1964). Contribución el estudio de la fonémica: Idioma Guajibo. ''Economía y Ciencias Sociales'', ''6'', 93–103.
* Queixalós, Francisco. (1985). ''Fonología Sikuani''. Bogotá: Insituto Caro y Cuervo.
*

References

External links

Luis Angel Arango Library: Diagnóstico sociolingüístico de Cumaribo, zona de contacto indígena – Colono, Vichadaby Héctor Ramírez Cruz

{{Languages of Venezuela
Languages of Colombia
Languages of Venezuela
Guajiboan languages