Urarina language

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Template other Urarina is a language isolate spoken in Peru, specifically in the Loreto Region of Northwest Peru, by the Urarina people. There are around 3,000 speakers in Urarinas District (along the Chambira River). It uses the Latin script. It is also known as Itucali, Simacu or Shimacu.

It has the rare canonical word order of object–verb–subject.

Classification

The classification of Urarina remains contentious: academics have placed the language in at least four language families including Panoan, Tupian, Macro-Tucanoan, and Amerind. However, the proposed language families share few similarities with Urarina, meaning it is likely best described as either “unclassified” or as a language isolate. It is usually assumed that it is a language isolate given Urarina’s complete lack of lexical overlap with any languages surrounding Urarina territory.

Dialects

There are four Urarina dialect zones:

• Zone A (western area, including Tigrillo and Espejo)
• Zone B (Lower Chambira dialects, including the Asna and Airico Rivers)
• Zone C (Upper Chambira and all of its tributaries)
• Zone D (Corrientes)

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Arawak, Leko, and Omurano language families due to contact.

Status

Urarina is currently spoken by the 2,000–3,000 members of the Urarina tribe, the majority of whom have retained the ability to speak the language. However, bilingualism and use of Spanish in everyday life is on the rise, as more and more Spanish-speaking mestizos have immigrated to the valley where the Urarina live. While there is a bilingual education system, most bilingual schools almost exclusively use Spanish, as the majority of the teachers do not speak Urarina. The version of Urarina that is spoken by younger generations has lost a substantial degree of grammatical complexity and vocabulary, as correlated to the loss of traditional cultural practices and beliefs. The language is considered potentially endangered.

Phonology

The following is the phonology of Urarina as described by Olawsky.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
						plain	labial	plain	palatal
Nasal		Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink		ng Template:IPAslink
Stop	Voiceless		Template:IPAslink		ts Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	kw Template:IPAslink
	Voiced	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink
Fricative		fw Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink		sh Template:IPAslink			Template:IPAslink	hj Template:IPAslink
Approximant			Template:IPAslink	r Template:IPAslink

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink
Mid	Template:IPAslink
Open		Template:IPAslink

Orthography is only written where it differs from IPA

Grammar

Urarina has several rare grammatical characteristics. The language follows the OVS word order: of all the languages that use OVS word order, Urarina is among the strictest adherents to this word order in speech. Another feature of Urarina is its complex system on all verbs (excluding borrowings). Every verb is marked according to one of three paradigms, as determined by a complicated set of pragmatic and syntactic conditions.

Urarina follows a similarly unique word class system. Numerals and adjectives that are borrowed from Quechua and Spanish are placed in a completely separate class from indigenous Urarina words. Urarina also follows syntactic rules wherein the pitch-accent system changes the tone of a word, based on the preceding word class. The language's set of unique features has recently garnered special attention from linguists. However, Urarina's distinctive grammatical features are gradually disappearing as younger generations speak a Urarina that is being influenced by a growing bilingualism in Spanish.

Like many other Amazonian languages, Urarina follows a polysynthetic, agglutinative word morphology in relating to verbs.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Itucale.

gloss	Itucale
one
two
head
eye
woman
fire
sun
maize
house
white

Flora and fauna

List of selected plant and animal names in Urarina:

Urarina	Local Spanish	English	Scientific name	Family
		(coriander-like herb)	Eryngium foetidum	Apiaceae
		balsa wood tree	Ochroma pyramidale	Bombacaceae
		(type of bee)
		jaguar	Panthera onca
		lighthouse tree (type)	Ceiba pentandra (type)
		giant arapaima (fish)	Arapaima gigas	Arapaimidae
		tambaqui (fish)	Colossoma macropomum	Characidae
		(type of tree)	Pourouma cecropiifolia	Moraceae
		(type of pepper plant)	Piper peltatum	Piperaceae
		giant armadillo	Priodontes maximus
		white nist palm	Dictyocaryum ptarianum	Arecaceae
		angel trumpet vine, datura	Brugmansia sp.	Solanaceae
		morning glory (vine)	Ipomoea sp.	Convolvulaceae
		swamp palm	Mauritia flexuosa	Palmae
		yellow star apple (tree)	Pouteria caimito	Sapotaceae
		South American lancehead snake	Bothrops atrox
		spider monkey	Ateles paniscus
		(type of tree)
		tinamou (partridge)	Crypturellus undulatus
		hog plum, yellow mombin (tree)	Spondias mombin	Anacardiaceae
		anamu (herb)	Petiveria alliacea	Phytolaccaceae
		tamarin (monkey)	Saguinus spp.
		woolly monkey	Lagothrix lagothricha
		type of tetra (fish)	Acestrocephalus boehlkei	Characidae
		razor-billed curassow (bird)	Crax, Mitu
		oriole type (bird)	Psarocolius sp.	Icteridae
		(type of plant)	Solanum mammosum
		Amazonian manatee	Trichechus inunguis
		(type of fish)	related to Acestrocephalus boehlkei	Characidae
		cancharana (tree)	Cabralea sp.	Meliaceae
		stilt palm	Socratea exorrhiza	Palmae
,		(type of tree)
		(type of catfish)	Ageneiosus atronasus	Auchenipteridae
	;	ice-cream bean (tree)	Inga edulis	Fabaceae
		owl monkey	Aotus nigriceps
	;	(type of banana)	Musa sp.
	bird	boat-billed heron	Cochlearius cochlearius
		(type of banana)	Musa sp.
		(type of tree)	Physalis angulata
	?	(type of tree)
		(type of catfish)	Pinirampus pirinampu	Pimelodidae
		annatto (tree, herb)	Bixa orellana	Bixaceae
	,	arrow cane	Gynerium sagittatum	Graminae
		(type of tuber)	Dioscorea trifida	Dioscoreaceae
		(type of herb)	Scleria	Cyperaceae
		(type of tree)		Myristicaceae – any type
		grey-winged trumpeter (bird)	Psophia crepitans
		(type of banana)
		tufted capuchin	Cebus apella
		tilapia (fish)	Prochilodus	Prochilodontidae
	,	great egret	Casmerodius alba
		Southern naked-tailed armadillo	Cabassous unicinctus
	;	silver dollar (fish)	Mylossoma/Metynnis/Myleus spp.	Characidae
	,	(type of tree)	Tocoyena williamsii	Rubiaceae
		(type of liana)	Banisteriopsis caapi	Malpighiaceae
		cassava; manioc	Manihot esculenta	Euphorbiaceae
		(type of knifefish)	Adontosternarchus balaenops
		peach tomato (bush)	Solanum sessiliflorum	Solanaceae
		rufescent tiger-heron	Botaurus pinnatus, Tigrisoma lineatum
		(type of liana)	similar to Uncaria spp.	Rubiaceae
		collared peccary	Pecari tajacu
		(type of tree)	Astrocaryum murumuru	Palmae
		white-lipped peccary	Tayassu pecari
	,	peach palm	Bactris gasipaes	Palmae
		chambira palm	Astrocaryum chambira	Arecaceae
		red howler monkey	Alouatta seniculus
		(type of catfish)	Brachyplatystoma filamentosum	Pimelodidae
		grey-necked wood-rail (bird)	Aramides cajanea
		yellow-spotted river turtle	Podocnemis unifilis
		(type of fig tree)	Poulsenia armata	Moraceae
		arrowleaf (tuber)	Xanthosoma sagittifolium	Araceae
		(type of tree)	Psidium guajava	Myrtaceae
	,	breadfruit tree	Artocarpus altilis	Moraceae
		giant anteater	Myrmecophaga tridactyla
		fig tree	Ficus spp., Coussapoa spp.	Moraceae
		kinkajou	Bassaricyon alleni
		jaguar	Panthera onca

Further reading

• Olawsky, K. (2006). A Grammar of Urarina. (Mouton Grammar Library, 37). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Wise, Mary Ruth. (1999). "Small Language Families and Isolates in Peru" in The Amazonian Languages. Dixon, R. M. W. and Aikhenvald, Alexandra (ed.)
• Template:Cite JIPA