Siona (otherwise known as Bain Coca, Pioje, Pioche-Sioni, Ganteyabain, Ganteya, Ceona, Zeona, Koka, Kanú) is a

Tucanoan language 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, Paez, Sape, Taruma, Witoto-Okaina, Saliba-Hodi, ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and

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 ...

. The language is essentially the same as

Secoya The Secoya (also known as Angotero, Encabellado, Huajoya, Piojé, Siekopai) are an indigenous peoples living in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon. They speak the Secoya language Pai Coca, which is part of the Western Tucanoan language group. In E ...

, but speakers are ethnically distinct. As of 2013, Siona is spoken by about 550 people. Teteté dialect (Eteteguaje) is extinct.Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices

Phonology

Vowels

There are 6 oral vowels and six nasal vowels. Only nasal vowels occur next to a nasal consonant or .

Consonants

There are two series of obstruent consonant. Both often produce a noticeable delay before the onset of the following vowel: the 'fortis' series (written ''p t č k kw s h hw'') tends to be aspirated, with a noisy transition to the vowel, while the 'lenis' series (written ''b d g gw ’ z''), optionally voiced, is glottalized, with a silent transition to the vowel, which in turn tends to be laryngealized. The

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

is faint, and noticeable primarily in the laryngealizing effect it has on adjacent vowels. is realized as between vowels. is realized as next to nasal vowels.

Stress

Stress is obligatory on all verb stems, root words, and some suffixes. It disappears when the syllable is not the nucleus of a

phonological word The phonological word or prosodic word (also called pword, PrWd; symbolised as ω) is a constituent in the phonological hierarchy higher than the syllable and the foot but lower than intonational phrase and the phonological phrase. It is largely he ...

. Some monosyllabic morphemes have both stressed and unstressed forms. Although the position of stress within a word is not contrastive, vocalic and consonantal allophony depends on whether a syllable is stressed. Initial stressed vowels followed by unstressed vowels are long and have a falling tone.

References

External links

* Wheeler, Alva. 1970.
Grammar of the Siona language, Colombia, South America.
' Ph.D. thesis. University of California. 192 p. *
Siona
(

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 ...

) {{Languages of Ecuador Tucanoan languages Indigenous languages of Western Amazonia Languages of Colombia Languages of Ecuador