Ticuna language

Some have tentatively associated the Ticuna language within the proposals of the macro-arawakano or with macro-tukano stocks, although these classifications are highly speculative given the lack of evidence. A more recent hypothesis has linked Yuri-Ticuna with the Saliban and Hoti languages in the Duho stock.{{Citation |last=Jolkesky |first=Marcelo |title=Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas. |date=2016 |journal=Title in English: An Archaeo-Ecolinguistic Study of the South American Tropics. The Downloadable Version (1.2) is the 2nd Update of My Original PhD Dissertation (Original Version: February 2016; 2nd Update Publication Date: October 2017) |url=https://www.academia.edu/27105400 |publisher=Brasilia: UnB. PhD Dissertation.}} However, the linguistic consensus is that Ticuna may actually be considered a language isolate in its present-day situation, since Yuri is extinct.

Ticuna is the Indigenous language most widely spoken in Brazil.{{Cite journal|last=Skilton|first=Amalia|date=2021|title=Ticuna (tca) language documentation: A guide to materials in the California Language Archive|url=http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24972|journal=Language Documentation & Conservation|language=en-US|volume=15|pages=153–189|hdl=10125/24972|issn=1934-5275}}

Despite being home to more than 50% of the Ticunas, Brazil has only recently started to invest in native language education. Brazilian Ticunas now have a written literature and an education provided by the Brazilian National Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI) and the Ministry of Education. Textbooks in Ticuna are used by native teachers trained in both Portuguese and Ticuna to teach the language to the children. A large-scale project has been recording traditional narrations and writing them down to provide the literate Ticunas with some literature to practice with.

Ticuna education is not a privilege, but part of a wider project carried on by the Brazilian government to provide all significant minorities with education in their own language.

In 2012, the Brazilian government launched an educational campaign for the prevention of AIDS and violence against women, the first such campaign in Brazil ever conducted in an indigenous language.{{Cite news

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| title = Brazilian government uses indigenous language for the first time in anti-AIDS campaign

| newspaper = The Washington Post

| access-date = 2012-10-21

| date = 2012-10-11

| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazilian-government-uses-indigenous-language-for-the-first-time-in-anti-aids-campaign/2012/10/11/e756f500-13ed-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220705201616/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazilian-government-uses-indigenous-language-for-the-first-time-in-anti-aids-campaign/2012/10/11/e756f500-13ed-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

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Ticunas in Peru have had native language education at least since the 1960s. They use a writing system that was, apparently, the base for the development of the Brazilian one. However, much of the literature available to Peruvian Ticunas comprise standard textbooks.

Colombian Ticunas are taught in Spanish, when they have access to school at all. Since the establishment of Ticuna schools in Brazil some have ventured to attend them.{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}}

A number of Christian ministries have reached the Ticuna people. These ministries have translated the Bible into the native Ticuna language and even have a weekday radio show that is broadcast in Ticuna, Portuguese, and Spanish by the Latin American Ministries (LAM).{{Cite web|url=http://www.latinamericanministries.net/ticuna/ucb-lam|title=Latin American Ministries – Project Ticuna}}

Besides its use at the Ticuna schools, the language has a dozen books published every year, both in Brazil and Peru. Those books employ a specially devised phonetic writing system using conventions similar to those found in Portuguese (except for K instead of C and the letter Ñ instead of NH) instead of the more complex scientific notation found, for instance, at the Language Museum.

In school Ticuna is taught formally. Children in schools typically in areas of Catholic Missionaries are also taught either Portuguese or Spanish as well.{{Cite web|url=https://xapiri.com/pages/ticuna|title=Ticuna Indigenous Trive in Brazil and Colombia|access-date=2017-07-30|archive-date=2017-07-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170730065656/https://xapiri.com/pages/ticuna|url-status=usurped}}

Vowels qualities are {{IPA|/a e i ɨ u o/}}. Vowels may be nasalized and/or show creaky voice, under which tones are lowered.Anderson, Doris, Conversational Ticuna, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1962 There are diphthongs {{IPA|/ai̯/}} and {{IPA|/au̯/}} that carry a single tone, contrasting with vowel sequences {{IPA|/ai/}} and {{IPA|/au/}} that carry two tones.

The six vowels may be nasal or laryngealized. The sixth vowel is spelled ü.

{{Expand section|date=March 2025}}

Ticuna is an unusually tonal language for South America, with over 10 mostly contour tones. Ticuna has one of the largest tone inventories in the world with 8–12 phonemic tones depending on the dialect.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}} Tones are only indicated orthographically, with diacritics, when confusion is likely.

Research has indicated isolated tonal languages with complex tones are more likely to occur in regions of higher humidity and higher mean average temperature because it is believed the vocal folds can produce less consistent tones in colder, drier air. Ticuna was one of the languages of focus in this study due to its prevalence—and complexity—of tones.{{Cite journal |last=Everett |first=Caleb |display-authors=etal |date=February 3, 2015 |title=Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=112 |issue=5 |pages=1322–7 |bibcode=2015PNAS..112.1322E |doi=10.1073/pnas.1417413112 |pmc=4321236 |pmid=25605876 |s2cid=1678719 |doi-access=free}}

The consonants of Ticuna consist of the following phonemes:

Natively, Ticuna has no lateral or uvular consonants, although /l/ is found in some Spanish loanwords.

The affricate {{IPA|/dʒ/}} (spelled "y") may be pronounced as {{IPA|/ɟ/}},{{Cite book|title=Lengua ticuna: resultados de fonología y sintaxis|last=Montes Rodríguez|first=María Emilia|year=2004}} and also {{IPA|/j/}}, but only before the vowel {{IPA|/a/}}. A central {{IPA|/ɨ/}} vowel sound may also be pronounced as a back {{IPA|[ɯ]}} sound. Other sounds, {{IPA|/f s x l/}} are found in Spanish loans.

Consonants may also be glottalized. Glottal stop is spelled x.

The letters of the Ticuna alphabet are as follows:

Letters f, j, k, l, s, v, z are used in Spanish loanwords.

Nasalization is indicated with a tilde, and laryngeal vowels with a macron below.{{Cite web |title=Diccionario ticuna – castellano |url=https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/90/20/51/90205190508691852389084667097660892450/tca_Ticuna_Dictionary_2016_web.pdf |website=www.sil.org}}

Ticuna is a fairly isolating language morphologically, meaning that most words consist of just one morpheme. However, Ticuna words usually have more than one syllable, unlike isolating languages such as Vietnamese. Typologically, Ticuna word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), though unusually this can vary within the language.

Ticuna displays nominative/accusative alignment, with person, number, noun class, and clause type indexed on the verb via proclitics. Transitive and unergative verbs tend to favor an Subject-(Object)-Verb word order, while unaccusative verbs show a preference for Verb-Subject word order.

{{Cite web|url=http://www.native-languages.org/ticuna_words.htm|title=Vocabularin in Native American Languages: Ticuna Words|website=Native Languages}}

The counting words in Ticuna imply a base five system of counting as the word for five is the combination of "one five". Six through nine all contain the same beginning "naixmixwa rü" and then append the values for one through four respectively (such that six is "naixmixwa rü" and "wüxi" meaning one).

An example of spoken Ticuna can be found [http://files.globalrecordings.net/audio/language/mp3/sample-1675.mp3 here].{{Cite web|url=http://globalrecordings.net/en/language/1675|title=Global Recordings – Ticuna Language}}

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}}

{{reflist}}

{{sister project |project=wiktionary |text=Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Ticuna word list}}

• [https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/30245 "Conversational Tikuna"] – Ticuna course and grammar at the Summer Institute of Linguistics
• [https://www.sil.org/resources/search/language/tca/online/1 Ticuna publications for download]
• [http://www.language-archives.org/language/tca OLAC resources in and about the Ticuna language]
• Ticuna (tca) language documentation: A guide to materials in the California Language Archive (Skilton 2021)

{{Languages of Brazil}}

{{Languages of Colombia}}

{{Languages of Peru}}

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Category:Ticuna–Yuri languages

Category:Indigenous languages of Western Amazonia

Category:Languages of Peru

Category:Languages of Colombia

Category:Languages of Brazil

Category:Tonal languages

Category:Isolating languages

Category:Subject–verb–object languages

hr:Tucuna

it:Ticuna