Kashinawa language

Kashinawa (also spelled Kaxinawá, Kashinawa, Kaxynawa, Caxinawa, and Caxinawá), or Hantxa Kuin, Huni Kui, is an indigenous American language of western South America which belongs to the Panoan language family. It is spoken by about 1,600 Kaxinawá in Peru, along the Curanja and the Purus Rivers, and in Brazil by 400 Kaxinawá in the state of Acre.

About five to ten percent of speakers have some Spanish language proficiency,^[3] while forty percent are literate and twenty to thirty percent are literate in Spanish as a second language.

Dialects are Brazilian Kashinawa, Peruvian Kashinawa, and the extinct Juruá Kapanawa (Capanahua of the Juruá River) and Paranawa.

Phonology

Vowels

• Although nasalization is generally marked by placing a tilde over the vowel, some authors choose to mark it with a following ⟨n⟩ to denote that the previous vowel or contiguous vowels are nasalised.

Consonants

• The stop consonant d /d/ may be pronounced as an alveolar flap [ɾ] when between two vowels, not unlike the North American English pronunciation of ⟨dd⟩ in the word ladder.

Dictionary

A dictionary has been compiled and published since 1980.

Orthogaphy

The Roman alphabet is used. Generatives come before nouns. There is an interrogative punctuation mark different from the question mark.

Morphology

Articles and adjectives are placed after nouns. There are seven prefixes and five suffixes.

References

Sources

• Cashinahua Pronunciation and Spelling Guide, Native Languages of the Americas website. 1998-2008.
• Wise, Mary Ruth. 1981. Diccionario Cashinahua. Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico del Verano.
• Animacy and mythology in Hantxa Kuin (Cashinahua), Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
• Kensinger, Kenneth M. The phonological hierarchy of Cashinahua (Pano). Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of Oklahoma. 1963.
• Montag, Richard. 2008 Participant Referencing in Cashinahua. SIL International.