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