Omurano language
{{Short description|Endangered language isolate of Peru}}
{{distinguish |Maynas language}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Omurano
| altname = Mayna
| states = Peru
| ethnicity = Maina
| speakers =
| date =
| familycolor = American
| family = Language isolate
(Saparo–Yawan?)
| iso3 = omu
| glotto = omur1241
| glottorefname = Omurano
| speakers2 = <10 rememberers (2013)
| extinct = 2006, with the death of Esteban Macusi
}}
Omurano is a language isolate from Peru.{{Citation |last=O’Hagan |first=Zachary |title=20 Omurano |date=2023-01-16 |work=Language Isolates II: Kanoé to Yurakaré |pages=939–956 |editor-last=Epps |editor-first=Patience |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110432732-007/html |access-date=2025-03-14 |publisher=De Gruyter |doi=10.1515/9783110432732-007 |isbn=978-3-11-043273-2 |editor2-last=Michael |editor2-first=Lev|url-access=subscription }} It is also known as Humurana, Roamaina, Numurana, Umurano, and Mayna. The language was presumed to have become extinct by 1958,{{e18|omu}} but in 2011 a rememberer was found who knew some 20 words in Omurano; he claimed that there were still people who could speak it.{{cite web|last=O'Hagan|first=Zachary J.|title=Informe de campo del idioma omurano|url=http://www.cabeceras.org/ohagan_omurano_fw2011_report.pdf|access-date=14 April 2013|date=22 September 2011}} The community has otherwise switched to Urarina, another language isolate.
It was spoken near the Urituyacu River (a tributary of the Marañón River), or on the Nucuray River according to Loukotka (1968).{{cite book |last=Loukotka |first=Čestmír |author-link=Čestmír Loukotka |title=Classification of South American Indian languages |url=https://archive.org/details/classificationof0007louk |url-access=registration |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center |year=1968 |location=Los Angeles}}
Classification
Tovar (1961) linked Omurano to Taushiro (and later Taushiro with Kandoshi); Kaufman (1994) finds the links reasonable, and in 2007 he classified Omurano and Taushiro (but not Kandoshi) as Saparo–Yawan languages.
Maynas, once mistaken for a synonym, is a separate language.
Despite there being previous proposals linking Omurano with Zaparoan, de Carvalho (2013) finds no evidence for this.{{Cite journal |last=Carvalho |first=Fernando O. de |date=2013-10-25 |title=On Záparoan as a valid genetic unity: Preliminary correspondences and the status of Omurano |url=http://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/ling/article/view/16544 |journal=Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=91–116 |doi=10.26512/rbla.v5i1.16544 |issn=2317-1375|doi-access=free }}
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Urarina, Arawak, Zaparo, and Leko language families due to contact.{{cite thesis|last=Jolkesky |first=Marcelo Pinho de Valhery |date=2016 |url=http://www.etnolinguistica.org/tese:jolkesky-2016-arqueoecolinguistica |title=Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas |type=Ph.D. dissertation |location=Brasília |publisher=University of Brasília |edition=2}}
Phonology
= Consonants =
Omurano has 10 consonants. No fricative or velar consonants have been attested.
| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+Omurano consonants ! rowspan="2" | ! colspan="2" |Bilabial ! colspan="2" |Alveolar ! rowspan="2" |{{Not a typo|Alveopalatal}} ! rowspan="2" |Palatal |
| voiceless
!voiced !voiceless !voiced |
|---|
| Stop
|p |b |t | | | |
| Nasal
| |m | |n | |ɲ |
| Affricate
| | | | |ʧ | |
| Flap
| | | |ɾ | | |
| Lateral
| | | |l | | |
| Glide
| | | | | |j |
{{IPAslink|b}} becomes {{IPAblink|β}} before {{IPAslink|e}}.
= Vowels =
= Tone =
Vocabulary
A word list by Tessmann (1930) is the primary source for Omurano lexical data.Tessmann, Günter. 1930. Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: grundlegende Forschungen für eine systematische Kulturkunde. Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter.
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.{{cite book |last=Loukotka |first=Čestmír |author-link=Čestmír Loukotka |title=Classification of South American Indian languages |url=https://archive.org/details/classificationof0007louk |url-access=registration |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center |year=1968 |location=Los Angeles}}
:
| class="wikitable sortable"
! gloss !! Omurana | |
| one | nadzóra |
| two | dzoʔóra |
| head | na-neyalok |
| eye | an-atn |
| woman | mparáwan |
| fire | íno |
| sun | héna |
| star | dzuñ |
| maize | aíchia |
| house | ána |
| white | chalama |
See also
Further reading
- O'Hagan, Zachary J. (2011). Omurano field notes. (Manuscript).
References
{{sister project |project=wiktionary |text=Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Omurano word list}}
{{Reflist}}
{{South American languages}}{{Languages of Peru}}
Category:Indigenous languages of the Andes