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| Piapoco | |
|---|---|
| Cháse | |
| Native to | Colombia,Venezuela |
Native speakers | 6,400 (2001–2007)[1] |
Arawakan
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:pio – Piapocopod – Ponares (retired) |
| Glottolog | piap1246 Piapocopona1251 Ponares – undemonstrated |
| ELP | Piapoco |
 | |
Piapoco is anArawakan language ofColombia andVenezuela.
A "Ponares" language is inferred from surnames, and may have been Piapoco orAchagua.
Piapoco is a branch of theArawak language, which also includes Achagua and Tariana.[2] Piapoco is considered a Northern Arawak language.[3] There are only about 3,000 Piapoco speakers left today. These people live in the Meta, Vichada, and Guaviare rivers in Colombia[4] Piapoco speakers also reside in Venezuela.[5] It is an endangered language.[5]
The Piapocos come from the larger tribe, thePiaroa, who are indigenous to the Amazon rain forest.[6] The Piapoco people originally lived in the midsection of Rio Guaviare, later moving in the 18th century to avoid settlers, missionaries, and others.[7]
The word Piapoco is a Spanish nickname in reference to the toucan.[4] Most Piapoco speakers also speak Spanish.[7] Speakers who have had less contact with Spanish speakers more often pronounce the phoneme "s" as avoiceless interdental fricative.[8] Younger speakers of the Piapoco language tend to eliminate the "h" more than older speakers due to their contact with the Spanish language.[8]
When a large portion of people come in contact with another language and are competent in it, their language gradually becomes more like the other.[9] This allows for a gradual convergence, where grammar and semantics of one language begin to replicate the other.[9]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | |||||
| Affricate | ts | ||||||
| Fricative | s̪ ~θ | h | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Low | e | a |
Vowels can be nasalized [ã] when occurring before nasal consonants.[10]
A Piapoco-Spanish dictionary containing 2,500 words was written by Deloris Klumpp, in which botanical identification of plants were captured, although not all.[3] The Piapoco language follows the following grammatical rules: plural suffix -nai used for animates only, derivational suffixes masculine -iri, feminine -tua, suffix -mi 'late, defunct,' nominalizing -si, declarative mood marker -ka.[3] Piapoco is unique in that it seems to be a nominative-accusative language.[3] There are eighteen segmental phonemes, fourteen consonant and four vowels in the Piapoco language.[8]
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