| Pemon | |
|---|---|
| Arecuna | |
| Ingarikó,Kapon | |
| Native to | Venezuela,Brazil,Guyana |
| Ethnicity | Pemon |
Native speakers | (6,000 cited 1990–2006)[1] |
Cariban
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | aoc |
| Glottolog | pemo1248 |
| ELP | Pemón |
ThePemon language (orPemón in Spanish) is anIndigenous language of the Cariban family spoken by some 30,000Pemon people, inVenezuela's Southeast, particularly in theCanaima National Park, in theRoraima State of Brazil and inGuyana.
It covers several dialects, includingArecuna (orArekuna),Camaracota,Camaracoto,Ingariko (orIngarikó), andTaulipang orTaurepan (Camaracoto may be a distinct language). The Pemon language may also be known and designated informally by one of the two dialectsArecuna (orArekuna) orIngariko (orIngarikó), or incorrectly under the nameKapon which normally designates another closely related small group of languages.
Pemon is one of several other closely related Venezuelan Cariban languages which also include theMacushi andKapon (orKapong, also sometimes used by natives to name the Pemon language itself, even if Kapon strictly covers only the twoAkawaio andPatamona languages). These four languages (including Macushi) form the group of Pemongan (orPemóng) languages. The broadKapon (orKapong) and selectiveIngariko (orIngarikó) terms are also used locally as a common ethnonym grouping Pemón, Akawaio, and Patamono peoples (and sometimes as well the Macushi people), and may be used as well to refer to the group of the four Pemongan (orPemóng) languages that they speak.
The Pemon language's syntax type isSOV with alternation toOVS.[2]
Pemon was an oral language until the 20th century. Then efforts were made to produce dictionaries and grammars, primarily by Catholic missionaries, specially Armellada and Gutiérrez Salazar. The Latin alphabet has been used, adding diacritic signs to represent some phonemes not existing in Spanish.[3]
Arekuna Pemon has the following vowels:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Open-mid | e | ɤ[a] | o |
| Open | a |
There are still texts only using Spanish characters, without distinguishing between pairs such as /o/ and /ɤ/. Diphthong sounds are[aɪ,au,ɔɪ,eɪ].
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | t | k | ||
| Fricative | s | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ | ||||
| Approximant | j | w |
Allophones of /s n k j/ are [tʃ ŋ ʔ ʎ].[4]
Pronouns in Pemon are:
| Pemon | English |
|---|---|
| yuré | I, me |
| amäre | you (singular) |
| muere, mesere | he, she |
| urekon | we |
| ina | we (exclusive) |
| amärenokon | you (plural) |
| ichamonan | they, them |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Guide for Pemon (Spanish)