Waurá language
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Waurá (Wauja) 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 ...
spoken in the
Xingu Indigenous Park The Xingu Indigenous Park (, pronounced ) is an indigenous territory of Brazil, first created in 1961 as a national park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its official purposes are to protect the environment and the several tribes of Xingu in ...
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 ...
by the Waujá people.Seki, Lucy. 2011
Alto Xingu: uma área linguística?
In: Franchetto, Bruna (ed.),
Alto Xingu: uma sociedade multilíngue
', p. 57-85. Rio de Janeiro: Museu do Índio/FUNAI.
It is "partially intelligible" with Mehináku. The entire population speaks the language.


Phonology


Consonants

* A glottal stop occurs phonetically before vowels in word-initial position, or after vowels in word-final position. * /p/ can be heard as aspirated ʰor voiced in free variation. * Stop sounds /t, k/ can be heard as aspirated ʰ, kʰin free variation. * /w/ can also be heard as in free variation, except when before /u/. * /s/ can be heard as voiced when between vowels, or after initial vowels. * /ʐ/ can be heard as voiceless when between vowels, or after initial vowels. * /j/ can be heard as a palatal nasal when occurring before nasal vowels /ã, ẽ, ũ/.


Vowels

* Sounds /i, u, ɨ, a/ can also be heard in lax form as , ʊ, ə, ɐ * Sounds /e, eː, ẽ/ can be heard as close-mid , eː, ẽor open-mid , ɛː, ɛ̃in free variation.


References

Arawakan languages Languages of Xingu Indigenous Park {{Arawakan-lang-stub