Neha Patil (Editor)

Kashinawa language

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Native to
  
Peru, Brazil

Native speakers
  
1,200 (2003–2007)

Glottolog
  
cash1254

Ethnicity
  
Kaxinawá people

ISO 639-3
  
cbs

Language family
  
Panoan Mainline Panoan Nawa Headwaters Kashinawa

Kashinawa (also spelled Kaxinawá, Kashinawa, Kaxynawa, Caxinawa, and Caxinawá), or Hantxa Kuin, Huni Kui, is an indigenous American language of western South America which belongs to the Panoan language family. It is spoken by about 1,600 Kaxinawá in Peru, along the Curanja and the Purus Rivers, and in Brazil by 400 Kaxinawá in the state of Acre.

Contents

About five to ten percent of speakers have some Spanish language proficiency, while forty percent are literate and twenty to thirty percent are literate in Spanish as a second language.

Dialects are Brazilian Kashinawa, Peruvian Kashinawa, and the extinct Juruá Kapanawa (Capanahua of the Juruá River) and Paranawa.

Vowels

  • Although nasalization is generally marked by placing a tilde over the vowel, some authors choose to mark it with a following ⟨n⟩ to denote that the previous vowel or contiguous vowels are nasalised.

    • Consonants

  • The stop consonant d /d/ may be pronounced as an alveolar flap [ɾ] when between two vowels, not unlike the North American English pronunciation of ⟨dd⟩ in the word ladder.

    • Dictionary

    A dictionary has been compiled and published since 1980.

    Orthogaphy

    The Roman alphabet is used. Generatives come before nouns. There is an interrogative punctuation mark different from the question mark.

    Morphology

    Articles and adjectives are placed after nouns. There are seven prefixes and five suffixes.

    References

    Kashinawa language Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA