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| Saliba | |
|---|---|
| Sáliva | |
| Native to | Colombia andVenezuela |
| Ethnicity | Saliva |
Native speakers | (1,600 cited 1991–2008)[1] |
Piaroa–Saliban
| |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | slc |
| Glottolog | sali1298 |
| ELP | Sáliva |
Saliba (Spanish:Sáliba,Sáliva) is an Indigenous language ofEastern Colombia andVenezuela.[2] Saliba was used byJesuitmissionaries in the 17th century to communicate with Indigenous peoples of theMeta,Orinoco, andVichada valleys. An 1856 watercolor byManuel María Paz is an early depiction of the Saliva people inCasanare Province.[3][relevant?]
"Saliba was spoken by an ethnic group that lived along the central reaches of theOrinoco River."[4]
"This language group was so isolated that the language was reported extinct in 1965."[5] It is not being passed on to many children, but that practice is being reconsidered. As of 2007, "Sáliva speakers now are almost all bilingual inSpanish, and Sáliva children are only learning Spanish instead of their ancestral language."[5]
As of 2007, "In theOrocué area the language is only conserved to a high degree among elderly women; others understand Sáliba but no longer express themselves in the language."[1] Native speakers have a literacy rate of 1-5%, and second-language speakers have a Sáliba literacy rate of 15-25%.
"Sáliba has a limited voicing distinction, and boasts six places of articulation for plosives. There are also two rhotics, and nasal counterparts for each of the five places of articulation for vowels."[2][6][7]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nor. | lab. | ||||||
| Stop | Plain | p | t | k | kʷ | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ɡʷ | |||
| Affricate | Plain | t͡ʃ | |||||
| Voiced | d͡ʒ | ||||||
| Fricative | Plain | ɸ | s | x | h | ||
| Voiced | β | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Rhotic | Flap | ɾ | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ĩ | u ũ | |
| Mid | e ẽ | o õ | |
| Open | a ã |
Saliba is written with theLatin alphabet.
The Saliba-Spanish dictionary by Benaissa uses the following orthography:[8]
| a | ã | b | c | ch | d | e | f | g | h | i | ĩ | j | l | ll | m | n | ñ | o | õ | p | q | r | s | t | u | ũ | w |
The Salibas ofOrocué,Caño Mochuelo, andSanta Rosalía have used a different orthography since April 12 2002. This orthography is based in part on the phonetic realisation by María Claudia González Rátiva and Hortensia Estrada Ramírez, and can be considered as a phonological orthography that takes dialectal variation into account.[10]
| a | ã | aa | a’ | b | ch | d | e | ẽ | ee | e’ | f | fw | g | gw | i | ĩ | ii | i’ | j | jw | x |
| xw | k | kw | l | m | n | ñ | o | õ | oo | o’ | p | r | rr | s | t | u | ũ | uu | u’ | y |
"Sáliba is an SOV language with noun classes and nominal classifiers. The language has a rich morphological system. In some cases, the realization of a verbal morpheme depends upon the form of the stem."[2]
The extinctAture language, once spoken on theOrinoco River near the waterfalls ofAtures, Venezuela, is unattested but was said to be 'little different' from Saliba, and so may have formed a Saliban branch.[13][14]
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