Tucano language

Tucano, also Tukano or Tucana, endonym ye’pâ-masa yee uúku͂sehé, is a Tucanoan language spoken in Amazonas, Brazil and Colombia.

Many Tariana people, speakers of the endangered Tariana language are switching to Tucano.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	voiced	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Nasal		(Template:IPAlink)	(Template:IPAlink)		(Template:IPAlink)
Fricative			Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink
Trill			Template:IPAlink
Approximant		Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink

Nasal sounds [m n ŋ] are variants of voiced stops /b d ɡ/ between nasal vowels. Stops may also be heard as prenasalized [ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ] after nasal vowels. /w/ can be heard as a nasal bilabial semivowel Template:IPAblink in the environment of nasal vowels. Allophones of /ɾ/ can be heard as Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Mid	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Low		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink

See also

• Tucano people

References

Spanish

• Tukanos

Bibliography

• A Fala Tukano dos Ye'pâ-Masa: Tomo I: Gramática . Henri Ramirez (1997) · Manaus: Inspetoria Salesiana Missionária da Amazônia, CEDEM.
• Welch, Betty and West, Birdie (2000). In Lenguas indígenas de Colombia: una visión descriptiva edited by González de Pérez, María Stella and Rodríguez de Montes, María Luisa. Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
• Bibliografía de la familia lingüística Tukano (antes Betoya) ( pp. 79-104 ). Marcelino de Castellvi (1939). In Proceedings of the second convention of the Inter American Bibliographical and Library Association 2:2 Washington, D.C.
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. Template:ISBN.
• Proto Tucanoan ( pp. 119-149 ). Nathan E. Waltz and Alva Wheeler (1972). In Comparative Studies in Amerindian Languages Mouton de Gruyter.

External links

• Tucanoan Languages Collection of Janet Chernela, housed at AILLA, containing audio recordings, transcriptions, translations and field notes from the 1970s and 1980s.