Enawene Nawe (Enawené-Nawé, Enawenê-Nawê, Eneuene-Mare), also known as , 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 ...
of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
spoken by about 570 people living in the
Juruena River
The Juruena River ( pt, Rio Juruena) is a long river in west-central Brazil, in the state of Mato Grosso.
Course
The Juruena originates in the Parecis plateau.
Within Mato Grosso the river defines the eastern boundary of the Igarapés do Juruen ...
basin area, and more specifically along the
Iquê river in the state of
Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 1.9% of the Brazilian GDP.
Neighboring ...
.
Classification
Aikhenvald (1999) classifies Enawene Nawe as a South Arawak language together with
Terena
The Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA, ) was a not-for-profit association of European national research and education networks (NRENs) incorporated in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The association was originally f ...
,
Lapachu and
Moxo.
However, more recent works by both Fabre (2005) and Brandão & Facundes (2007) consider the language to form a subgroup with
Paresi in the
Paresi–Xingu branch of Arawakan languages.
Phonology
Consonants
Enawene Nawe is described by Zorthêa (2006) as having 15 contrastive consonants.
Among these, the following allophonic variations are reported:
Vowels
Enawene Nawe is described by Zorthêa (2006) as having 4
oral vowel
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 nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
s and 4 nasal vowels.
Grammar
Pronouns
Numerals
The first eleven numbers in Enawene Nawe are as follows:
Zorthêa (2006) notes that all numbers except ''initini'' (2) and ''monarese'' (5) can be preceded and followed by affixes.
Affixes
Enawene Nawe makes use of a variety of suffixes and prefixes to derive different meanings from root words.
Gender suffixes
Zorthêa (2006) describes Enawene Nawe as having two suffixes to explicitly mark gender: ''-lo'' for the feminine gender and ''-re'' for the masculine.
De Almeida (2015), however, notes four suffixes: ''-nero'' and ''-lo'' mark the feminine gender, while ''-nere'' and ''-li'' mark the masculine.
Examples from de Almeida (2015):
* ''Towalinero'' "a Towali woman"
* ''Towalinere'' "a Towali man"
* ''Iyakaloti '' "a female spirit"
* ''Iyakaliti '' "a male spirit"
Place suffix
The suffix ''-kwa'' is used to mark places and is commonly found in village names. For example, the name of the Enawene Nawe village ''Matokodakwa'' is ultimately derived from ''matokoda'', meaning "container for transporting liquids", and ''-kwa'' "place".
References
{{Arawakan languages
Arawakan languages
Languages of Brazil
Mamoré–Guaporé linguistic area