Native speakers 500 (2000–2008) | ||
Ethnicity Siona people, Teteté people Language family TucanoanWesternNapoSiona–SecoyaSiona ISO 639-3 Either:snn – Sionateb – Teteté | ||
The Siona language (otherwise known as Sioni, Pioje, Pioche-Sioni, Ganteyabain, Ganteya, Ceona, Zeona, Koka, Kanú) is a Tucanoan language of Colombia and Ecuador.
As of 2013, Siona is spoken by about 550 people. Teteté dialect (Eteteguaje) is extinct.
Phonology
There are 6 oral vowels and six nasal vowels. Only nasal vowels occur next to a nasal consonant /m/ or /n/.
There are two series of obstruent consonant. Both often produce a noticeable delay before the onset of the following vowel: the 'fortis' series (written p t č k kw s h hw) tends to be aspirated, with a noisy transition to the vowel, while the 'lenis' series (written b d g gw ’ z), optionally voiced, is glottalized, with a silent transition to the vowel, which in turn tends to be laryngealized. The glottal stop is faint, and noticeable primarily in the laryngealizing effect it has on adjacent vowels.
/ʈˀ/ is realized as [ɾ] between vowels. /j/ is realized as [ɲ] next to nasal vowels.
Stress is obligatory on all verb stems, root words, and some suffixes. It disappears when the syllable is not the nucleus of a phonological word. Some monosyllabic morphemes have both stressed and unstressed forms. Although the position of stress within a word is not contrastive, vocalic and consonantal allophony depends on whether a syllable is stressed. Initial stressed vowels followed by unstressed vowels are long and have a falling tone.