Piapoco 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. Branc ...

of Colombia and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in ...

. A "Ponares" language is inferred from surnames, and may have been Piapoco or Achagua.

History

Piapoco is a branch of the

Arawak language Arawak (, ), also known as Lokono (Lokono Dian, literally "people's talk" by its speakers), is an Arawakan language spoken by the Lokono (Arawak) people of South America in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. It is the eponymou ...

, which also includes Achagua and Tariana. Piapoco is considered a Northern Arawak language. There are only about 3,000 Piapoco speakers left today. These people live in the Meta, Vichada, and Guaviare rivers in Colombia Piapoco speakers also reside in Venezuela. It is an endangered language.

Geography/Background

The Piapocos come from the larger tribe, the

Piaroa The Piaroa people, known among themselves as the ''Huottüja'' or ''De'aruhua'', are a pre-Columbian South American indigenous ethnic group of the middle Orinoco Basin in present-day Colombia and Venezuela, living in an area larger than Belgiu ...

, who are indigenous to the Amazon rain forest. The Piapoco people originally lived in the midsection of Rio Guaviare, later moving in the 18th century to avoid settlers, missionaries, and others.Flowers, N. M. (n.d.). Piapoco. Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://www.everyculture.com/South-America/Piapoco.html

Grammar

A Piapoco-Spanish dictionary containing 2,500 words was written by Deloris Klumpp, in which botanical identification of plants were captured, although not all. The Piapoco language follows the following grammatical rules: plural suffix -nai used for animates only, derivational suffixes masculine -iri, feminine -tua, suffix -mi 'late, defunct,' nominalizing -si, declarative mood marker -ka. Piapoco is unique in that it seems to be a nominative-accusative language. There are eighteen segmental phonemes, fourteen consonant and four vowels in the Piapoco language.Klumpp, D. (1990). Piapoco Grammar. 1-136. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/18810.

Phonology

Consonants

* /s̪/ can be pronounced as among speakers who have had less contact with Spanish speakers. * /k/ can be palatalized as when after /i/, before another vowel. * /ts/ can be pronounced as in free variation among different speakers. * /w/ is pronounced as when preceding front vowels.

Vowels

Vowels can be nasalized �when occurring before nasal consonants.

Bilingualism

The word Piapoco is a Spanish nickname in reference to the toucan. Most Piapoco also speak Spanish. Speakers who have had less contact with Spanish speakers more often pronounce the phoneme "s" as a voiceless interdental fricative. Younger speakers of the Piapoco language tend to eliminate the "h" more than older speakers due to their contact with the Spanish language. When a large portion of people come in contact with another language and are competent in it, their language gradually becomes more like the other. This allows for a gradual convergence, where grammar and semantics of one language begin to replicate the other.

References

* Languages of Colombia Languages of Venezuela Arawakan languages {{Arawakan-lang-stub