Mawayana language
Mawayana (Mahuayana) is an Arawakan language of Guyana.
Classification
Aikhenvald (1999) lists Mawayana (with the alternate name of Mapidian and possibly Mawakwa) together with Wapishana under a Rio Branco group (North-Arawak). Hicks (2002), instead, reports that it has no "semantic" similarity with Mapidian or the other Wapishanan languages.[4] Carlin (2006:314), however, states that Mawayana "is closely related to Wapishana" and according to Ramirez (2001:530) they share at least 47% of the lexicon.
Phonology
According to Carlin (2006:320), Mawayana has, among its consonants, two implosive consonants /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ and what has been described as a "retroflex fricativised rhotic", represented with ⟨rž⟩. The vowel systems contains four vowels (/i-e, a, ɨ, u-o/), each of which has a nasalised counterpart.
Morphosyntax
Mawayana has a polysynthetic morphology, mainly head-marking and with suffixes, although there are pronominal prefixes. The verbal arguments are indexed on the verb through subject suffixes on intransitive verbs, while agent prefixes and object suffixes on transitive verbs (Carlin 2006:319).
- n-kataba-sï
- 1A-grab.PAST-3O
- 'I grabbed him.'
- tõwã-sï
- sleep.PAST-3S
- 'He fell asleep.'
nnu | a-na | mauɗa | chika-dza | Mawayana |
1PN | when-1S | die | NEG-COMPL | mawayana |
'When I die there will be no Mawayana left at all.' |
Notes
References
- Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (1999). "The Arawak language family". In Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R.M.W. The Amazonian languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–106.
- Carlin, Eithne B (2006). "Feeling the need. The borrowing of Cariban functional categories into Mawayana (Arawak)". In Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R.M.W. Grammars in contact: A cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Carlin, Eithne B (2011). "Nested identities in the Southern Guyana-Surinam corner". In Hornborg, Alf; Hill, Jonathan D. Ethnicity in ancient Amazonia: Reconstructing past identities from archaeology, linguistics, and ethnohistory. University Press of Colorado. pp. 225–236.
- Carlin, Eithne B; Boven, Karin (2002). "The native population: Migration and identities". In Carlin, Eithne B.; Arends, Jacques. Atlas of the languages of Suriname. KITLV Press. pp. 11–45.
- Carlin, Eithne B; Mans, Jimmy (2013). "Movement through time in the southern Guianas: deconstructing the Amerindian kaleidoscope". In Carlin, Eithne B.; Leglise, Isabelle; Migge, Bettina; et al. In and out of Suriname: Language, mobility, and identity. Caribbean Series. Leiden: Brill.
- Ramirez, Henri (2001). Línguas Arawak da Amazônia setentrional (in Portuguese). Manaus: Universidade Federal do Amazonas.
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