Arhuaco language
Arhuaco, commonly known as Ikʉ, (Arhuaco: Ikʉ) is an Indigenous American language of the Chibchan language family, spoken in South America by the Arhuaco people.[3]
| Arhuaco | |
|---|---|
| Ikʉ | |
| Native to | Colombia |
| Ethnicity | 14,800 Arhuacos (2001)[1] |
Native speakers | 8,000 (2009)[2] |
Chibchan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | arh |
| Glottolog | arhu1242 |
| ELP | Ica |
 | |
There are 8000 speakers, all in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of Colombia, 90% of whom are monolingual.[3] Literacy is 1 to 5% in their native language. Some speak Spanish, and 15 to 25% are literate in that auxiliary language.[3] The users have a very strong traditional culture and have vibrant use of their tongue.[3]
It is also known as: Aruaco, Bintuk, Bíntukua, Bintucua, Ica, Ijca, Ijka, Ika, and Ike.[3]
The language uses a subject–object–verb (SOV) sentence structure.[3]
Phonology
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ⟨i⟩ | ɨ ⟨ʉ⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ |
| Mid | e ⟨e⟩ | ə ⟨y⟩ | o ⟨o⟩ |
| Open | a ⟨a⟩ |
/ə/ is raised to and merged with /ɨ/ word finally.
This language registers 17 consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Alveolar | Alveolo- palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occlusive | voiceless | p ⟨p⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | tʃ ⟨ch⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ʔ ⟨ꞌ⟩ |
| voiced | b ⟨b⟩ | d ⟨d⟩ | dʒ ⟨ɉ⟩ | ɡ ⟨g⟩ | ||
| Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n~ŋ ⟨n⟩ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s ⟨s⟩ | h ⟨j⟩ | |||
| voiced | β ⟨w⟩ | z ⟨z⟩ | ʒ ⟨zh⟩ | |||
| Flap | ɾ ⟨r⟩ | |||||
Syllable structure
With some exceptions, Arhuaco syllables may begin with up to two consonants (the second of which must be a glide /w j/) and may be closed by one of the following consonants: /ʔ n r w j/.
Prosody
Arhuaco stress normally falls on penultimate syllables, with secondary stresses occurring on every other preceding syllable, in the case of longer words (e.g. /ˌunkəˈsia/ 'protective bracelet').[4] There are some affixes and enclitics that are extrametrical and do not count as syllables for stress assignment.
References
Frank, Paul. 1985. A grammar of Ika. PhD thesis. University of Pennsylvania.
Frank, Paul. 2000. Ika syntax. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Landaburu, Jon. 2000. La lengua Ika. in Lenguas indigenas de Colombia: Una visión descriptiva. Bogota: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
Notes
- Arhuaco language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
- Arhuaco at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Arhuaco, by Arango and Sánchez, Ethnologue, 1998, access date 16 April 2008
- Landaburu, Jon (2000). La lengua Ika. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.