The Hodï (Jodï, JotÃ, Hoti) language, also known as Yuwana (Yoana), Waruwaru, or Chikano (Chicano), is a small
unclassified language
An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...
spoken by the
Hodï people of
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
. Very little is known of it; its several hundred speakers are monolingual hunter-gatherers. The people call themselves ''Jojodö'' ('the people') or ''Wįlǫ̈'', and their language ''Jojodö tjįwęnę''. The two communities with the most speakers are San José de Kayamá and Caño Iguana, with several hundred speakers total.
Sources are inconsistent with nasals, varying between e.g. ''nV'' and ''lá¹¼''.
Classification
No classification of Hodï has yet been established to the satisfaction of linguists.
Attempts have been made to link Hodï with the nearby
Piaroa–Saliban languages
The Piaroa–Saliban, also known as Saliban (in spanish : ''Sálivan''), are a small proposed language family of the middle Orinoco Basin, which forms an independent island within an area of Venezuela and Colombia (northern ''llanos'') dominate ...
. A recent proposal classifies Hodï and (Piaroa–)Saliban as the branches of a single Jodï–Saliban
macrofamily
A macrofamily (also called a superfamily or superphylum) is a term often used in historical linguistics to refer to a hypothetical higher order grouping of languages.
Metonymically, the term became associated with the practice of trying to group ...
. However, similarities in vocabulary with the Piaroa–Saliban languages may in fact be due to
sprachbund
A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...
ing: Henley, Mattéi-Müller and Reid (1996) argue that the apparent
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.
Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
s between Hodï and Piaroa–Saliban are rather
loanword
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s.
Henley et al., based on limited data, said that Hodï may be related to the
Nadahup languages
The Nadahup languages, also known as Makú (Macú) or ''Vaupés–Japurá'', form a small language family in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The name ''Maku people (disambiguation), Makú'' is pejorative, being derived from an Arawakan language ...
. The only linguist to speak Hodï and
Piaroa, Stanford Zent, has collected more reliable data and said that it is "probably" related to the Piaroa–Saliban languages.
Since 1985 a relationship to the
Yanomaman languages
Yanomaman, also as Yanomam, Yanomáman, Yamomámi, and Yanomamana (also Shamatari, Shirianan), is a family of languages spoken by about 20,000 Yanomami, Yanomami people in southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil (Roraima, Amazonas State, Braz ...
has also been suggested, in part on the grounds that Hodï shares 20% of its vocabulary with this family.
Phonology
The first phonological analysis is Vilera DÃaz (1985). She largely retains the vocalic description of earlier researchers, apart from finding vowel length is a product of emphasis, but does not state whether vowel nasalization is phonemic, and does not provide a minimal pair for /o/ vs /u/.
[Vilera DÃaz, Diana C. 1985. "Introducción morfológica de la lengua Hoti". Thesis in Anthropology. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.]
The mid central vowel is written .
Vowels
Quatra (2008) maintains that
�and
�are distinct phonemes, but does not provide any minimal pairs to demonstrate that. He also maintains that
�and
�are only nasalized following nasal consonants.
Consonants
There is no minimal pair for , so it is not clear that it is a separate phoneme.
/n/ is
�before a velar. /k/ and /kʲ/ are
�, ɡʲafter a nasal and occasionally intervocalicly. Intervocalic /l/ is
� /b/ (perhaps ɓ) is
�ʷbefore /i e o/. /ɗ/ was written 'd' due to lack of typewriter support.
ʲvaries as
ʃʲ and
Ê’varies as
�in all contexts, not just adjacent to nasal vowels.
Phonetic aspiration occurs at boundaries, often before voiceless consonants and always before /l/.
{, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
, +Consonants (Quatra 2008)
! colspan="2" rowspan="2" ,
! colspan="2" ,
Bilabial
! colspan="2",
Alveolar
! colspan="2",
Alv-pal
! colspan="2",
Velar
! rowspan="2" ,
Glottal
, -
!
plain
!
preasp.
!
plain
!
preasp.
!
plain
!
preasp.
!
plain
!
preasp.
, - align="center"
! rowspan="2" align="left" ,
Obstruent
An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...
!
voiceless
,
,
,
, jt
, ky
, jky
,
, jk
,
, - align="center"
!
voiced
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, - align="center"
! colspan="2" align="left" ,
Nasal
Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination:
* With reference to the human nose:
** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery
* ...
,
,
,
, jn
, ñ
, jñ
,
,
,
, - align="center"
! colspan="2" align="left" ,
Continuant
In phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech ...
, {{IPA, w
, jw {{IPA,
�w}
, {{IPA, l
, jl {{IPA,
�l}
, y {{IPA,
, jy {{IPA,
�j}
,
,
, j {{IPA,
}
The voiced stops are realized as nasals
nbetween nasal vowels. From the orthography, it is assumed that the 'aspirated' consonants are pre-aspirated, but there are no minimal pairs to establish them as phonemic.
Bibliography
*Guarisma P., V.; Coppens, W. (1978). Vocabulario Hoti. Antropológica, 49:3-27. GUDSCHINSKY, S. C. (1974). Fragmentos de Ofaié: a descrição de uma lÃngua extinta. Série LingüÃstica, 3:177-249. BrasÃlia: SIL.
*Krisólogo B., P. J. (1976). Manual glotológico del idioma wo'tiheh. (Lenguas indÃgenas de Venezuela, 16.) Caracas: Centro de lenguas Indigenas, Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas, Universidad Católica "Andrés Bello".
*Mattei-Müller, M. (1981). Vocabulario Hodï (Hoti). (Manuscript).
*{{Cite book , title=Bajkewa jkwïkïdëwa-jya: jodï i̱ne - dodo i̱ne: castellano - jodï = diccionario básico , date=2008 , publisher=Eds. IVIC, Inst. Venezolano de Investigaciones CientÃficas , isbn=978-980-261-096-9 , editor-last=Quatra , editor-first=Miguel Marcelo , location=Caracas , editor-last2=Liye , editor-first2=Jhonny , editor-last3=Liye , editor-first3=Vilma MarÃa , editor-last4=Jono , editor-first4=Tito
References
{{Reflist
External links
* Alain Fabre 2005. ''Diccionario etnolingüÃstico y guÃa bibliográfica de los pueblos indÃgenas sudamericanos''
HOTIYuwana(
Intercontinental Dictionary Series)
{{language families
{{Languages of Venezuela
{{South American languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodi language
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Jodi–Saliban languages