Yuracaré (also Yurakaré, Yurakar, Yuracare, Yurucare, Yuracar, Yurakare, Yurujuré, Yurújare
) is an
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...
language isolate
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
of central
Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
in
Cochabamba
Cochabamba (; ) is a city and municipality in central Bolivia in a valley in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital (political), capital of the Cochabamba Department and the list of cities in Bolivia, fourth largest city in Bolivia, with ...
and
Beni departments spoken by the
Yuracaré people.
Speakers refer to their own language as ''Yurújare''
uˈɹ̟uhaɹ̟e
Distribution
There are 2,000–3,000 Yurakaré speakers in the upper
Mamoré River valley of eastern Bolivia. They live along the
Chapare and
Ichilo Rivers in
Cochabamba Department
Cochabamba (, , ), from Quechua ''qucha'' or ''qhucha'', meaning "lake", ''pampa'' meaning "plain", is one of the nine departments of Bolivia. It is known to be the " granary" of the country because of its variety of agricultural products from ...
, as well as along the
Isiboro and
Sécure Rivers in
Isiboro-Sécure National Park.
Loukotka (1968) reported that Yuracaré was spoken at the sources of the
Sécure River
The Sécure River is a river of Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlan ...
, and on the
Chapare River and
Chimoré River.
Classification
Suárez (1977) suggests a relationship between Yuracaré and the
Mosetenan,
Pano–Tacanan,
Arawakan
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 ...
, and
Chon
CHNOPS and CHON are mnemonic acronyms for the most common elements in living organisms. "CHON" stands for carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which together make up more than 95 percent of the mass of biological systems. "CHNOPS" adds ...
families. His earlier ''Macro-Panoan'' proposal is the same minus Arawakan (Suárez 1969).
Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with the
Moseten-Tsimane languages.
Dialects
Two dialects, now extinct, were:
*''Western'' - Mansiño, Oromo
*''Eastern'' - Mage, Soloto
''Coni'', ''Cuchi'', and ''Enete'' are possible dialects (Brinton 1891).
[Brinton, Daniel G. 1891. ''The American race''. New York: D. C. Hodges.]
Usage
There are approximately 2,500 speakers. These numbers are in decline as the youngest generation no longer learns the language. (See
Language death
In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers, when it becomes known as an extinct langua ...
.)
Documentation
Yuracaré is documented with a grammar based on an old missionary manuscript by de la Cueva (Adam 1893). The language is currently being studied by Rik van Gijn. A
Foundation for Endangered Languages
Foundation(s) or The Foundation(s) may refer to: Common uses
* Foundation (cosmetics), a skin-coloured makeup cream applied to the face
* Foundation (engineering), the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads f ...
grant was awarded for a Yuracaré–Spanish / Spanish–Yuracaré dictionary project in 2005.
Phonology
Consonants
*The glottal stop
�only occurs in intervocalic positions.
*/n/ may be pronounced as
�when preceding /k/.
Vowels
* /ɨ/ may also be heard as a front-rounded
in free variation among speakers.
* Sounds /e, o, a/ may also be heard as
�, ɔ, ɑwhen in closed syllables.
Grammar
*
Verb-initial
*
agglutinating
An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations) ...
*
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
es,
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
es
*
reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The cla ...
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.
:
See also
*
Yuracaré
Notes
Bibliography
* Adam, Lucien. (1893). ''Principes et dictionnaire de la langue Yuracaré ou Yurujuré composés par le R. P. de la Cueva et publiés conformément au manuscrit de A. d'Orbigny''. Bibliothèque linguistique américaine (No. 16). Paris: Maisonneuve.
* Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). ''The Languages of the Andes''. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge University Press.
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language History in South America: What We Know and How To Know More. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), ''Amazonian Linguistics: Studies in Lowland South American languages'' (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. .
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The Native Languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the World's Languages'' (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
*Ribera, J.; Rivero, W.; Rocha, A. (1991). Vocabulario yuracaré-castellano, castellano-yuracaré. Trinidad: MISEREOR.
* Suárez, Jorge. (1969). Moseten and Pano–Tacanan. ''Anthropological Linguistics'', ''11'' (9), 255-266.
* Suárez, Jorge. (1977). La posición lingüÃstica del pano-tacana y del arahuaco. ''Anales de AntropologÃa'', ''14'', 243-255.
* van Gijn, Rik. (2004). Number in the Yurakaré Noun Phrase. In L. Cornips & J. Doetjes (Eds.), ''Linguistics in the Netherlands 2004'' (pp. 69–79). Linguistics in the Netherlands (No. 21). John Benjamins.
* van Gijn, Rik (2005). Head Marking and Dependent Marking of Grammatical Relations in Yurakaré. In M. Amberber & H. de Hoop (eds.) Competition and Variation in Natural Languages: The Case for Case. (pp. 41–72) Elsevier.
* van Gijn, Rik (2006) A Grammar of Yurakaré. Ph.D. dissertation Radboud University Nijmegen.
External links
* Proel
Lengua Yurakare(Foundation for Endangered Languages)
* DoBeS
General presentation of the Yurakaré language and peopleLenguas de Bolivia(online edition)
Yurakaré DoReCo corpuscompiled by Sonja Gipper and JeremÃas Ballivián Torrico. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yuracare language
Language isolates of South America
Indigenous languages of the South American Southern Foothills
Languages of Bolivia
Endangered language isolates
Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas
Mamoré–Guaporé linguistic area