Cha'palaa (also known as Chachi or Cayapa) is a
Barbacoan language spoken in northern
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
by ca. 3000 ethnic
Chachi people Chachi people (also Cayapas) are an ethnic group who live in the rainforest area of northwestern Esmeraldas on the northern coast of Ecuador. They live by the Cayapas River in the Centro El Encanto, a section of the Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Res ...
.
"Cha'palaa" means "language of the
Chachi people Chachi people (also Cayapas) are an ethnic group who live in the rainforest area of northwestern Esmeraldas on the northern coast of Ecuador. They live by the Cayapas River in the Centro El Encanto, a section of the Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Res ...
." This language was described in part by the missionary P. Alberto Vittadello, who, by the time his description was published in
Guayaquil
, motto = Por Guayaquil Independiente en, For Independent Guayaquil
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Ecuador#South America
, pushpin_re ...
,
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
in 1988, had lived for seven years among the tribe.
Cha'palaa has
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
morphology, with a Subject-Object-Verb word order.
Cha'palaa is written using the Latin alphabet, making use of the following graphemes:
A, B, C, CH, D, DY, E, F, G, GU, HU, I, J, L, LL, M, N, Ñ, P, QU, R, S, SH, T, TS, TY, U, V, Y, and '
The writing system includes four simple vowels, and four double vowels:
Phonology
Cha'palaa has four vowels: /a, e, i, u/.
Cha'palaa has 22 consonant phonemes.
References
External links
Native Languages on Cha'palaachi, with linksCayapa(
Intercontinental Dictionary Series
The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An ...
)
Agglutinative languages
Languages of Ecuador
Barbacoan languages
Endangered Barbacoan languages
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