| Itonama | |
|---|---|
| sihni pandara | |
| Native to | Bolivia |
| Region | Beni Department |
| Ethnicity | 2,900Itonama people (2006)[1] |
| Extinct | 2012–2023[1][2] |
| Latin | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Bolivia |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ito |
| Glottolog | iton1250 |
| ELP | Itonama |
 Itonama is classified as Critically Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
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Itonama (Itonama:sihnipadara[2]) is alanguage isolate once spoken by theItonama people in the Amazonian lowlands of north-easternBolivia. It was spoken on theItonomas River and Lake[3] inBeni Department.
InMagdalena town on the western bank of the Itonama River (a tributary of theIténez River), located inIténez Province, only a few elderly people remember a few words and phrases.[4]: 483
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with theNambikwaran languages due to contact.[5]
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[6] found lexical similarities between Itonama andMovima, likely due to contact.
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| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ⟨ï⟩ | u |
| Mid | e ~ɛ⟨e⟩ | o | |
| Low | a⟨a⟩ |
Diphthongs are/aiau/⟨ay aw⟩.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | plain | p | t | tʃ ~ts⟨ch⟩ | tʲ⟨ty⟩ | k⟨k⟩ | ʔ⟨’⟩ |
| ejective | tʼ | tʃʼ ~tsʼ⟨chʼ⟩ | kʼ⟨kʼ⟩ | ||||
| voiced | b | d | |||||
| Fricative | s | h | |||||
| Liquid | lateral | l | |||||
| rhotic | ɾ⟨r⟩ | ||||||
| Semivowel | w ~β⟨w⟩ | j⟨y⟩ | |||||
The postalveolar affricates/tʃtʃʼ/ have alveolar allophones[tstsʼ]. Variation occurs between speakers, and even within the speech of a single person.
The semivowel/w/ is realized as abilabial fricative[β] when preceded and followed by identical vowels.[2]
Itonama is apolysynthetic, head-marking, verb-initial language with an accusative alignment system along with an inverse subsystem in independent clauses, and straightforward accusative alignment in dependent clauses.
Nominal morphology lacks case declension and adpositions and so is simpler than verbal morphology (which has body-part and location incorporation, directionals, evidentials, verbal classifiers, among others).[7]
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Itonama.[3] They are shown here alongside the forms cited in the Intercontinental Dictionary Series (IDS),[8] which takes its data from Camp and Liccardi (1967).
| gloss | Itonama (Loukotka) | Itonama (IDS) |
|---|---|---|
| one | chash-káni | u-kʼaʔne |
| two | chash-chupa | -tʃupa |
| tooth | huomóte | oh-womotʼe |
| tongue | páchosníla | oh-potʃosnila |
| hand | mapára | uh-maʔpara |
| woman | ubíka | wabɨʔka |
| water | huanúhue | wanuʔwe |
| fire | ubári | u-bari |
| moon | chakakáshka | u-ʔtʲahka-ʔkaʔka |
| maize | udáme | u-tʃuʔu, kanasbɨstʃa |
| jaguar | ótgu | |
| house | úku | u-ku |
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