| Bora | |
|---|---|
| Meamuyna | |
| Native to | Peru,Colombia |
| Ethnicity | Bora people |
Native speakers | (2,400 cited 2000)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | boa |
| Glottolog | bora1263 |
| ELP | Bora |
 | |
Bora is anindigenous language of South America spoken in the western region ofAmazon rainforest. Bora is atonal language which, other than theTicuna language, is a unique trait in the region.
The majority of its speakers reside inPeru andColombia. Around 2,328 Bora speakers live in the areas of the northeast Yaguasyacu,Putumayo and Ampiyacu rivers of Peru. There are about 500 speakers of Bora also in Colombia in thePutumayo Department. Peruvian speakers have a 10 to 30% literacy rate and a 25 to 50% literacy rate in their second language of Spanish.[citation needed]
Early linguistic investigators thought that Bora was related to theHuitoto (Witoto) language, but there is very little similarity between the two. The confusion was most likely due to the frequent intermarriage between the tribes and the Ocaina dialect of Witotoan which has many Bora words.
Miraña, a dialect of Bora, is spoken along theCaquetá-Japurá river which flows from Colombia toBrazil, and a few villages are there.
Bora proper has 94%mutual comprehensibility with the Miraña dialect.
Another dialect of Bora,Murnane, which has about a 50% comprehensibility with Bora and Miraña, is spoken along tributaries of theCaquetá River in central Colombia.
Loukotka (1968) lists these dialects of Bora:[2]
Bora contains 350classifiers, the most discovered of any languages thus far.[3][4]
The written form of Bora was developed by Wycliffe Bible Translators Wesley and Eva Thiesen with the help of the natives of the village of Brillo Nuevo on the Yaguasyacu river. Wesley and Eva Thiesen's daughter Ruth is also the first recorded non-native to learn the language. First, Bora to Spanish school books was developed. Then the New Testament Bible was translated. Finally, a comprehensive dictionary and grammar book was developed to document and preserve the language's grammar rules. This has since facilitated more textbooks so that speakers can be taught to read and write in their language, rescuing it from extinction due to the prevalence of Spanish and Portuguese in the regions where it is spoken.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iiː | ɨɨː | ɯɯː |
| Mid | ɛɛː | ooː | |
| Open | aaː |
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | labial | plain | pal. | |||
| Plosive | plain | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | k | kʲ | k͡p ~kʷ | ʔ | ʔʲ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | pʲʰ | tʰ | tʲʰ | kʰ | kʲʰ | |||||
| Affricate | plain | t͡s | t͡sʲ ~t͡ʃ | ||||||||
| aspirated | t͡sʰ | t͡sʲʰ ~t͡ʃʰ | |||||||||
| Fricative | β | βʲ | (x) | h | hʲ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | ɲ | |||||||
| Approximant | j | ||||||||||
| Flap | ɾ | (ɾʲ) | |||||||||
Authority control databases: National |
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