The Cubeo language (also spelled Cuveo) is the language spoken by the Cubeo people in the

Vaupés Department Vaupés () is a departments of Colombia, department of southeastern Colombia in the Amazon rainforest, jungle covered Amazonía Region. It is located in the southeast part of the country, bordering Brazil to the east, the department of Amazonas ...

, the Cuduyari and Querarí Rivers and their tributaries in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, and in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and

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 ...

. It is a member of the central branch of the

Tucanoan languages Tucanoan (also Tukanoan, Tukánoan) is a language family of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru. Language contact Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Arutani language, Arutani, Paez language, Paez, Sape language, ...

. Cubeo has borrowed a number of words from the

Nadahup languages The Nadahup languages, also known as Makú (Macú) or ''Vaupés–Japurá'', form a small language family in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The name ''Maku people (disambiguation), Makú'' is pejorative, being derived from an Arawakan language ...

, and its grammar has apparently been influenced by

Arawak languages 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 ...

. The language has been variously described as having a subject–object–verb or an object–verb–subject word order, the latter very rare cross-linguistically. It is sometimes called ''Pamiwa'', the ethnic group's autonym, but it is not to be confused with the Pamigua language, sometimes called Pamiwa.

Writing system

''Đ'' is used in its bowl-struck form, approximately .

Phonology

Vowels

There are six oral vowels and six

nasal vowels A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the Human nose, nose and the human mouth, mouth simultaneously, as in the French language, French vowel /ɑ̃/ () or A ...

. is pronounced as in ''roses''.

Consonants

Unusually, Cubeo has a velar fricative /x/ but no strident fricative /s/. When older Cubeos use Spanish loans with /s/, they pronounce it as before vowels. The /s/ deletes in word-final position in loans as in < Sp. Jesús 'Jesus' (cf.

Colombian Spanish Colombian Spanish () is a grouping of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of Colombia are quite diverse. The speech of the nor ...

Stress

The stressed

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

is the first syllable with high tone in the phonological word (usually the second syllable of the word). Stress (and by extension, the position of the first high-tone syllable) is contrastive.

Nasality

Most morphemes belong to one of three categories: # Nasal (many roots, as well as suffixes like ''-xã'' 'associative') # Oral (many roots, as well as suffixes like ''-pe'' 'similarity', ''-du'' 'frustrative') # Unmarked (only suffixes, e.g. -''RE'' 'in/direct object') No root is unmarked with respect to this nasal/oral division, but some roots are partially oral and nasal, 'to defecate'. Suffixes that begin with consonants without nasal allophones may be only nasal or oral, not unmarked, but suffixes that begin with consonants that have nasal allophones () may belong to any of the three classes above. It is impossible to predict the class to which a nasalizable consonant-initial suffix may belong. There are some suffixes that are partially oral and partially nasal, like -kebã 'suppose'.Morse & Maxwell 1999, pp. 7, 43 There is no case in modern Cubeo in which -kebã is divided into separate oral and nasal suffixes.

Nasal assimilation

Nasality spreads rightward from the nasal vowel, nasalizing all oral vowels within a word if they are not nasal and all intervening consonants can be nasalized () : bu-bI-ko : : : 'She recently studied.' Unlike the previous example, in the next one, nasality spreads from the initial vowel to the following one, but it is blocked from the third syllable by a non-nasalizable : : dĩ-bI-ko : : : 'She recently went.' Nasal spreading is blocked by underlyingly oral suffixes or vowels that are underlyingly oral in a nasal/oral morpheme.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

WALS entry for Cubeo

at ''Omniglot'' {{Languages of Colombia Tucanoan languages Languages of Colombia Languages of Brazil Indigenous languages of South America Subject–object–verb languages