Mapoyo, or Mapoyo–Yavarana, is a Carib language spoken along the Suapure and Parguaza Rivers,

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. The ethnic population of Mapoyo proper is about 365. Yabarana dialect is perhaps extinct; 20 speakers were known in 1977. An additional dialect, Pémono, was discovered in 1998. It was spoken by an 80-year-old woman and has since gone extinct.

Phonology

Consonants

* /h/ can be heard as a palatal �when preceding a voiceless plosive. * /n/ can be heard as a velar �when preceding a velar /k/. * /β/ can be heard as a voiced stop when after a voiceless plosive or glottal /ʔ/. * /s/ can be heard with an allophone of swhen word-initially, or after a glottal /ʔ/. * /j/ can be heard as a voiced fricative � when before a back vowel.

Vowels

* Sounds /i, u/ are reduced to �, ʊin syllable-final position. * /ɘ/ is heard as a lower �sound when preceding /h/, or following /β/. * /a/ is heard as �when occurring after an initial bilabial sound.

References

* Granadillo, Tania. 2019
El mapoyo y la rama venezolana de lenguas caribes
''Cadernos de Etnolingüística'', volume 7, número 1, julho/2019, p. 43-55.

External links

Languages of Venezuela Extinct languages of South America Languages extinct in the 1990s Languages extinct in the 2000s Cariban languages {{indigenousAmerican-lang-stub