Puinave, Waipunavi (Guaipunabi) or Wanse ( pui, Wãnsöhöt) is an indigenous language of Colombia and

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 ...

. It is generally considered to be an

unclassified language An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...

Varieties

Varieties listed by Mason (1950): *Puinave (Epined) **Western: Bravos, Guaripa **Eastern: Mansos *Macú **Macú **Tikié **Kerarí **Papurí **Nadöbo Alternate names of Puinave are ''Puinabe, Puinavis, Uaipunabis, Guaipunavos, Uaipis''.

Classification

Puinave is sometimes linked to other poorly attested languages of the region in various

Macro-Puinavean Macro-Puinavean is a hypothetical proposal linking some very poorly attested languages to the Nadahup languages, Nadahup family. The Puinave language is sometimes linked specifically with the Nadahup languages and Nukak language, Nukak-Kakwa lang ...

proposals, but no good evidence has ever been produced. The original motivation seems to simply be that all of these languages were called ''Maku'' "babble" by Arawakans.Patience Epps, 2008. ''A Grammar of Hup''. Mouton de Gruyter. Ongoing work on Puinave by Girón Higuita at the University of Amsterdam will hopefully clarify the situation.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Syllable structure is (C)V(C); nasal syllabic nuclei cause allophonic variation of consonantal segments in the same syllable. The phonemes have oral, non-sonorant allophones in the onsets of syllables with oral nuclei. The high vowel , when occurring in onset or coda position, is realized as a glide . When the high vowel is in coda position, it is also realized as a glide , but in onset position, it is realized as a palatal stop matching in nasality with the nucleus, either or , in the same way that match the following vowel's nasality. Any glides occurring before or occurring after a nasalized nucleus are also realized as nasal .

Tone

Puinave distinguishes four surface (phonetic) tones: two simple (H and L) and two contour (HL and LH); these are analyzed as being composed of two phonemic tone values, H and L. Girón Higuita and Wetzels (2007) note that speakers seem to associate H with prominence, rather than increased duration or intensity (the typical correlates of prominence in languages like English).

Morphology and syntax

Jesús Mario Girón's description of the morphology and the function of nominalized constructions in this language can be found in ''The Linguistics of Endangered Languages'' (edited by

Leo Wetzels Leo or Léo may refer to: Acronyms * Law enforcement officer * Law enforcement organisation * ''Louisville Eccentric Observer'', a free weekly newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky * Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity Arts a ...

Bibliography

*Bautista Sánchez, E. (2008). ''Diccionario puinave-español y la oración gramatical''. CIRCUI, Centro de Investigaciones de rescate cultural Puinave Autóctonas. *Girón, J. M. (2008). ''Una gramática del Wã́nsöjöt (Puinave)''. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. (Doctoral dissertation). *Girón Higuita, J.M. and W. Leo Wetzels (2007). Tone in Wãnsöhöt (Puinave). ''Language Endangerment and Endangered Languages: Linguistic and Anthropological Studies with Special Emphasis on the Languages and Cultures of the Andean-Amazonian Border Area,'' W. Leo Wetzels ed., CNWS Publications.

References

External links

Puinave dictionary online
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Puinave
( Intercontinental Dictionary Series) {{South American languages Indigenous languages of the South American Northeast Languages of Venezuela Language isolates of South America Macro-Puinavean languages Languages of Colombia