Mehináku (Meinaku) is an
Arawakan language
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 ...
spoken by the
Mehinaku
The Mehinaku, Mehináko or Mehinacu are an indigenous people of Brazil. They live in the Indigenous Park of the Xingu, located around the headwaters of the Xingu River in Mato Grosso. They currently reside in area around the Tuatuari and Kuris ...
people in the
Xingu Indigenous Park of
Brazil.
[Seki, Lucy. 2011]
Alto Xingu: uma área linguística?
In: Franchetto, Bruna (ed.),
Alto Xingu: uma sociedade multilíngue
', p. 57-85. Rio de Janeiro: Museu do Índio/FUNAI. One dialect, Waurá-kumá, is "somewhat
intelligible" with
Waurá due to influence from this language.
[
]
Phonology
Mehináku features five vowels /a e i ɨ u/ which can be either oral or nasal /ã ẽ ĩ ɨ̃ ũ/.
References
Arawakan languages
Languages of Xingu Indigenous Park
{{Arawakan-lang-stub