Paraujano 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 Paraujano, or Anũ, 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 ...

. The Paraujano live by

Lake Maracaibo Lake Maracaibo () is located in northwestern Venezuela, between the states of Zulia, Trujillo, and Mérida. While Maracaibo is commonly referred to as a lake, its current hydrological characteristics may better classify it as estuary and/or ...

Zulia State Zulia State (, ; Wayuu language, Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the States of Venezuela, 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, it has a population of 3,704,404, the largest population among Vene ...

, in Northwest Venezuela.

General information

Paraujano people

The Paraujanos call themselves the Anu͂ or Anu͂n (means ‘human being), which is a self-denomination of the people. 'Paraujano' is better known in ethnographic literature. They received the name Paraujano from the neighboring Guajiros. The combination of ''palaa'', meaning ‘sea’, and ''anu͂'' literally means ‘people of the sea’, or fishermen. The Paraujano live in palafittes and are skilled at fishing and boating. According to a 2011 census, more than 21,000 people identify as Paraujano.

Status and speakers

Paraujano is critically endangered and nearly extinct. The Maracaibo region began transforming into a largely populated industrial center in the early 1900s, as petroleum was extracted from the Maracaibo Lake. As the Paraujano mingled with others early on, their language was spread and spoken by some newcomers. However, by the 1970s there were only thirteen speakers remaining. As of 2014, there is one surviving fluent speaker, a thirty-year-old by the name of Yofri Márquez, who learned the language from his grandmother. There are a few partial speakers, most of whom are elderly. Revitalization efforts include Paraujano instruction in six regional elementary schools and the establishment of various cultural organizations.

Classification

Paraujano is a Northern Arawakan, or Maipuran, language. It is derived from Gaujiro, yet is a distinct language and not a dialect of Gaujiro. The two languages are closely related. According to lexicostatistical analysis conducted by Oliver (1989) the two languages must have diverged around A.D. 900.

Phonology

The Paraujano phonemic inventory contains 14 pulmonic consonants and 11 vowels. The Paraujano phoneme inventory differs from closely related Guajiro, mainly in vowels and due to the incorporation of Spanish lexicon. There are a number of allophones in Paraujano. Among these allophones, there is a tendency toward palatization or

nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation in British English) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . ...

Lexicon

Paraujano has incorporated some Spanish words into its vocabulary. Out the eighty-nine available words from the

Swadesh list A Swadesh list () is a compilation of cultural universal, tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. That is, a Swadesh list is a list of forms and concepts which all languages, without exception, have terms for, such as ...

, six are Spanish substitutes.

References

External links

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5T5AIDN0f0 {{Arawakan languages Arawakan languages Languages of Venezuela Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas