Arhuaco language
{{Short description|Chibchan language spoken in Colombia}}
{{Redirect-distinguish2|Ica language|the Ika language of Nigeria}}
{{nofootnotes|date=June 2020}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Arhuaco
| nativename = {{lang|arh|Ikʉ}}
| states = Colombia
| ethnicity = 14,800 Arhuacos (2001){{e16|arh}}
| speakers = 8,000
| date = 2009
| ref = e18
| familycolor = American
| fam1 = Chibchan
| fam2 = Arwako–Chimila
| fam3 = Arwako languages
| iso3 = arh
| glotto = arhu1242
| glottorefname = Arhuaco
| notice = IPA
| map = Arhuaco.png
| altname = Ica
}}
Arhuaco, commonly known as Ikʉ ({{langx|arh|Ikʉ|link=no}}), is an Indigenous American language of the Chibchan language family, spoken in South America by the Arhuaco people.[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=arh Arhuaco], by Arango and Sánchez, Ethnologue, 1998, access date {{date|04/16/08}}
There are 8000 speakers, all in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of Colombia, 90% of whom are monolingual. Literacy is 1 to 5% in their native language. Some speak Spanish, and 15 to 25% are literate in that auxiliary language. The users have a very strong traditional culture and have vibrant use of their tongue.
It is also known as: Aruaco, Bintuk, Bíntukua, Bintucua, Ica, Ijca, Ijka, Ika, and Ike.
The language uses a subject–object–verb (SOV) sentence structure.
Phonology
| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ Vowels ! ! Front ! Central ! Back |
| Close
| {{IPA link|i}} {{grapheme|i}} | {{IPA link|ɨ}} {{grapheme|ʉ}} | {{IPA link|u}} {{grapheme|u}} |
|---|
| Mid
| {{IPA link|e}} {{grapheme|e}} | {{IPA link|ə}} {{grapheme|y}} | {{IPA link|o}} {{grapheme|o}} |
| Open
| | {{IPA link|a}} {{grapheme|a}} | |
{{IPA|/ə/}} is raised to and merged with {{IPA|/ɨ/}} word finally.
This language registers 17 consonant phonemes:
| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ Consonants ! colspan="2" | ! Labial ! Alveolar ! Velar ! Glottal |
| rowspan="2" | Occlusive
! {{small|voiceless}} | {{IPA link|p}} {{grapheme|p}} | {{IPA link|t}} {{grapheme|t}} | {{IPA link|tʃ}} {{grapheme|ch}} | {{IPA link|k}} {{grapheme|k}} | {{IPA link|ʔ}} {{grapheme|{{saltillo}}}} |
|---|
| {{small|voiced}}
| {{IPA link|b}} {{grapheme|b}} | {{IPA link|d}} {{grapheme|d}} | {{IPA link|dʒ}} {{grapheme|ɉ}} | {{IPA link|ɡ}} {{grapheme|g}} | |
| colspan="2" | Nasal
| {{IPA link|m}} {{grapheme|m}} | {{IPA link|n}}~{{IPA link|ŋ}} {{grapheme|n}} | | | |
| rowspan="2" | Fricative
! {{small|voiceless}} | | {{IPA link|s}} {{grapheme|s}} | | | {{IPA link|h}} {{grapheme|j}} |
| {{small|voiced}}
| {{IPA link|β}} {{grapheme|w}} | {{IPA link|z}} {{grapheme|z}} | {{IPA link|ʒ}} {{grapheme|zh}} | | |
| colspan="2" | Flap
| | {{IPA link|ɾ}} {{grapheme|r}} | | | |
= Syllable structure =
With some exceptions, Arhuaco syllables may begin with up to two consonants (the second of which must be a glide /w j/) and may be closed by one of the following consonants: /ʔ n r w j/.
= Prosody =
Arhuaco stress normally falls on penultimate syllables, with secondary stresses occurring on every other preceding syllable, in the case of longer words (e.g. /ˌunkəˈsia/ 'protective bracelet').{{Cite book|last=Landaburu|first=Jon|title=La lengua Ika|publisher=Instituto Caro y Cuervo|year=2000|location=Bogotá}} There are some affixes and enclitics that are extrametrical and do not count as syllables for stress assignment.
Morphology
= Personal pronouns =
| class="wikitable"
|+Arhuaco personal pronouns !person !singular !plural |
| 1st
|nən |niβi |
| 2nd
|ma |miβi |
| 3rd
|a |ikənaʔ |
Frank (1985, 34) lists six personal pronouns for Arhuaco, with singular and plural numbers for first, second, and third persons and notes that they "do not occur very frequently in text; they occur occasionally in subject position, very rarely in object position, and most frequently as the object of a preposition".{{cite thesis |last1=FRANK |first1=PAUL STEPHEN |date=1985 |title=A GRAMMAR OF IKA (CHIBCHAN, COLOMBIA) |id={{ProQuest|303374815}} |oclc=857226516 }}
Unusually, person marking in Arhuaco verbs has evolved to have effectively become a way to mark epistemic modality or evidentiality.{{cite journal |last1=Bergqvist |first1=Henrik |title=Epistemic marking in Ika (Arwako) |journal=Studies in Language |date=2012 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=154–181 |doi=10.1075/sl.36.1.05ber |url=http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-80129 }}{{cite book |last1=Ostler |first1=Nicholas |editor1-last=Smith |editor1-first=John Charles |editor2-last=Bentley |editor2-first=Delia |title=Historical Linguistics 1995. Volume 1: General issues and non-Germanic Languages. Selected papers from the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, August 1995 |date=2000 |publisher=John Benjamins |location=Amsterdam, Netherlands |isbn=978-90-272-3666-1 |pages=279–293 |chapter=The Development of Transitivity in the Chibchan Languages of Colombia |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DapxAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA279 }}
References
Frank, Paul. 1985. A grammar of Ika. PhD thesis. University of Pennsylvania.
Frank, Paul. 2000. Ika syntax. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Landaburu, Jon. 2000. [https://lenguasdecolombia.caroycuervo.gov.co/ICCadmin/ICC/documentos/ika.pdf La lengua Ika]. in Lenguas indigenas de Colombia: Una visión descriptiva. Bogota: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
Notes
External links
- [https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/49237 Arhuaco (Ika) dictionary]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20120320150545/http://www.humanas.unal.edu.co/home/versiones/arh Ika language version of the Faculty of Humanities of the National University of Colombia]
{{Languages of Colombia}}
{{Chibchan languages}}
{{authority control}}