Caribbean languages

The Caribbean languages form a language family that currently consists of about 30 languages and about 50,000 speakers, in Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, and some parts of Colombia. Dating estimates for the Proto-Caribbean place it about 3700 years ago. This family is one of the largest in South America if we look at its geographical extension (until the XVIII century it also spread across the Caribbean).

Some authors tentatively include these languages within a supposedly larger family together with the Macrogê languages, spoken in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentine Patagonia.

The most widely spoken Carib languages today are Ka'riña (sometimes called simply Carib) with about 10,000 speakers. Macushi has about 24,000 speakers and Pemón has a similar number.

Distribution and history

There are approximately 30 Carib languages today, spoken mainly north of the Amazon, but reaching as far as Mato Grosso. They were previously widespread in the Antilles, where they have not been spoken since the 17th century or XVIII.

The number of speakers of the Carib languages, which has suffered a huge decline, is about 40 or 50 thousand people. Currently they are spoken mainly in Venezuela (pemón, yukpa, eñepa or panare, maquiritare or yecuaná), Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and Colombia (carijon), having disappeared from the Antilles and experiencing a great decline in Brazil and the Guianas. If it really is part of the Carib languages, the most important group in this family would be chocó, spoken in western Colombia. Other languages are the Kariña Caribbean of Suriname, Guyana, and Venezuela, the Tiriyó or trio in Suriname and Brazil, and Waiwai, Atroari, Ingaricó, Ikpeng, Kuikuro, Bacairí, Apalai, Hishkaryana, Taulipang, and Macusí.

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the name Carib was applied by chroniclers to almost any people in northwestern South America who put up violent resistance against European conquerors. Thus, the chronicles classify peoples of dubious Caribbean affiliation as Caribs, such as the Pijaos, the Andakíes, some Chocó peoples, and some Chibcha peoples.

The following table shows the distribution of speakers of Carib languages, according to various sources:

Classification

Caribbean languages are reasonably well studied; Both the internal division of the family and the comparative vocabulary and general grammatical characteristics of the same have been studied. The degree of knowledge is good enough to have reasonably reconstructed numerous aspects of the Proto-Caribbean. Likewise, systematic comparison works with other linguistic families have been initiated, without being able to establish a relationship with other families with complete certainty, although there are promising proposals in this regard.

Family languages

Includes estimates of the number of speakers of each language with the date of said calculation.

Caribbean (32)

North (25)

Cost (5)

Chaima (Venezuela) †

Cumanagoto (Venezuela) †

Japrería (Venezuela) 80 (2000); 95 (2002); 100 (2005)

Carare-Opón (Colombia) † (Yariguí)

Yukpa (Colombia, Venezuela) 3000 (1997); 3000 (2000); 3000 (2005); 7630 (2007)

Guayana (12)

Macushi-Kapon (4)

Kapon (3)

Akawaio or kapon (Guyana) 4300 (1980); 3500-4500 (1997); 4300 (2000); 5350 (2002); 10 000 (2005); 5000 (2007); 5000 (2012)

Patamona (Guyana) 4700 (1990); 3000-4000 (1997); 4700 (2000)

Pemon (Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil) 4000-7000 (1991); 5930 (1997); 6004 (2000); 6160 (2001); 6000 (2005)

Macushí (1)

Macushi (Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana) 11 400-13 000 (1992); 5700 (1997); 11 400 (2000); 29 100 (2001); 25 000 (2005)

Waimiri (1)

Atruahí (Brazil) 350 (1994); 930 (2001); 350 (2005)

Waiwai (3)

Sikiana (2)

Salumá (Brazil) 240 (2000)

Sikiana (Brazil, Suriname) 33 (2000); 48 (2001)

Waiwai (Brazil) 885-1060 (1997); 1850 (1998); 770 (2000); 2000 -3110 (2005)

Wama (1)

Akurio (Surinam) 10 (2000)

Wayana-Trío (3)

Apalaí (Brazil) 450 (1993); 420 (2005)

Tiriyó (Surinam, Brazil) 1130 (1971); 2000 (1999); 1150 (2000); 2300 (2003); 2000 (2004)

Wayana (Surinam) 750 (1980); 950 (1997); 750 (2005)

Galibi (1)

Kariña (Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname) 10 000 (1992); 6500 -20 000 (1997); 6500 -10 000 (2000); 7430 (2001); 6500 (2005)

North of Brazil (2)

Arára, Pará (Brazil) 200 (2005)

Ikpeng (Brazil) 320 (2002-2005)

Western Guyana (5)

Mapoyo (Venezuela) 12 (2001)

Eñepa (Venezuela) 1200 (1997); 3540 (2001); 1200 (2005)

Pémono (Venezuela) 1 (2000)

Tamanaku (Venezuela) †

Yabarana (Venezuela) 35 (1977); 20 (2000)

South (7)

Southeast Colombia (1)

Carijona (Colombia) 140 (1975); 310 (2001); 140 (2005)

South of the Guayana (3)

Hixkaryána (Brazil) 550 (1994); 350 (1997); 600 (2000); 600 (2001); 600 (2005)

Kaxuiâna (Brazil) 435 (1970); 70 (2005)

Maquiritare (Venezuela) 5240 (1980); 1200-4970 (1991); 5240 (1997); 5950 (2001); 5000 (2005)

Xingú Basin (3)

Bakairí (Brazil) 950 (1999-2005)

Kuikúro-Kalapálo (Brazil) 526 (2000); 870 (2002); 950 (2005)

Matipuhy (Brazil) †

Kinship with other languages

It is disputed whether the Chocó family of Colombia is related to the Carib languages. Likewise, it has been proposed that there could be a distant linguistic relationship with the macro-tupí family and correspondences have even been found with the macro-yê family, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Rodriges (2000) recently provided some evidence in favor of a hypothetical Yê-Tupí-Caribbean family, but the work is still preliminary and this hypothesis requires further study.

Description

Phonology

The short and long vowels are: /i, i, e, a, o, u/ (i, is a high, closed, central-back vowel, not rounded). In the Yukpa language there are oral and nasal vowels, in some variants there is the presence of the vowel [i] as in the Yukpa speakers of Sokorpa in Colombia. The consonant inventory of an Amazonian language can have the phonemes of the following table:

Phonemes without parentheses are found in all Carib languages, phonemes in parentheses only occur in some of the languages.

The syllabic formula is more complex than in other Amazonian language families: (C)(C)V(V)(C).

Morphology

Extension of the Caribbean languages.

Many of the Carib languages have an interesting system of marking the subject and complement of the verb that presents split ergativity. The first and second person forms are usually marked by a typically nominative-accusative system when they are agents and with a typically ergative system when they are patients. In some languages the factors that decide when to use an accusative or ergative marking depends on the tense.

Verb stems are modulated by prefixes or suffixes; for example, the prefix wos- introduces the notion of reciprocal action, as in eːne 'see', wos.eːne 'see each other'. The prefix we- and variants indicates that the action expressed by the stem does not involve second or third persons, as exkeːi 'cook' (for others), woxheːi 'to cook (for oneself). The suffix -poti expresses iterative action, like eːnepoti 'seeing' while the suffix -kepi indicates cessation of action, such as eːnekepi 'no see more'.

Examples of postpositions are paːto 'next to', ta 'in', uwaːpo 'andes', as yuːwaːpo 'before me', ayuːwaːpo 'before you'.

Personal pronouns distinguish between collective (plural) and non-collective (non-plural) forms. Syntactically, there are non-collective forms such as *kïCV 'tú y yo' (versus plural *kïC-jamo 'you, me and others') as opposed to *(ap)ina 'him and me, but not you'. Third person pronouns distinguish between animate and inanimate forms:

Lexical comparison

The following table compares the numerals from 1 to 10 in various Caribbean languages:

In Galibi, the numbering from 1 to 10 is as follows: ōwinß (carijona: te'ɲi, yukpa: ikúma), ōko (carijona: saka& #39;narə, yukpa:kósa), ōruwa, o:kopaime, aiyato:ne, o:winduwo:piima, o:kotueo:oIima, o:ruwatuwo:pi ima, o:winapo: sikiri, aiyapato:ro.

Americanisms of Caribbean origin

Several Americanisms or borrowings into Spanish have passed from the Caribbean languages: balaca, cabuya, cacique, cannibal, chicha, fotuto, guaca, iguana, manatí, piragua, arepa.