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Aikanã (sometimes called Tubarão, Corumbiara/Kolumbiara, or Huari/Uari/Wari) is an endangered language isolate spoken by about 200 Aikanã people in Rondônia, Brazil. It is morphologically complex and has SOV word order. Aikanã uses the Latin script. The people live with speakers of Koaia (Kwaza).

Demographics

Aikanã is traditionally spoken in the Terra Indígena Tubarão-Latundê, where it is still the dominant language. It is also spoken in the Terra Indígena Kwazá do Rio São Pedro, where Kwazá is traditionally spoken. A few Aikanã families in also reside in the Terra Indígena Rio Guaporé, but they do not speak the language there. There are nearly 100 ethnic Aikanã (locally known as Kassupá) people, in the Comunidade Indígena Cassupá e Salamãi, although the final Aikanã speaker there died in 2018.

Classification

Van der Voort (2005) observes similarities among Aikanã, Kanoê, and Kwaza, and believes that it is strong enough to definitively link the three languages together as part of a single language family. An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) also found lexical similarities between Aikanã and Kwaza. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with Kanoe, Kwaza, and Nambikwara due to contact.

Varieties

Varieties listed by Loukotka (1968):

• Huari (Corumbiara) - spoken between the Corumbiara River and Guarajú River, Rondônia
• Masaca (Aicana) - spoken on the left bank of the Corumbiara River
• Aboba - extinct language once spoken on the Guarajú River
• Maba - extinct language once spoken on the Guajejú River (unattested)
• Puxacaze - once spoken on the Guajejú River, Brazil (unattested)
• Guajejú - once spoken at the sources of the Jamarí River and Candeia River (unattested)

Phonology

Vowels

• /y, ỹ/ can also be heard as close-mid .
• /a, ã/ are heard as before /i, ĩ/.

Consonants

• Within the position of nasal vowels, sounds /b, d, d͡ð/ become and /w, ɾ, h/ become .
• /t̪͡s, d͡ð/ are only heard as affricates in word-initial position. Elsewhere, they are heard as a fricatives and .
• /w/ can be heard as a fricative when before /i/.
• /ɾ/ can also be heard as between vowels.
• /d͡ʒ/ is heard as before a front-vowel, before a non-front vowel, and as or before a nasal vowel.

Grammar

In Aikanã, the verb phrase or predicate morphological template is:

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Huari and Masaca, as well as Capixana.

gloss	Huari	Masaca	Capixana
one	amemeeː	amäme	pátairä
two	arukai	atuka	kãerá
three		ümaitü	piakaúkä
head	chimé	tinupá	i-kutá
ear	ka-niyú	ka-nĩgó	i-tẽyõ
tooth	múi	mõiː	i-pé
hand	iné	iné	i-so
woman	chikichíki	dätiá	míaʔä
water	hané	hánä	kuni
fire	íne	íné	iní
stone	huahuá	urorä	akí
maize	atití	ákí	atití
tapir	arimé	alümä	itsá

Aikanã plant and animal names from Silva (2012) are listed in the corresponding Portuguese article.

Further reading

• Vasconcelos, I. P. (2004). Aspectos da fonologia e morfologia da língua Aikanã. Maceió: Universidade Federal de Alagoas. (Masters dissertation).

References

1. ^ Aikanã at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Hein van der Voort (2004). A Grammar of Kwaza. Walter de Gruyter. p. 9. ISBN 3-11-017869-9.
3. Hein van der Voort (2007). "Theoretical and social implications of language documentation and description on the eve of destruction in Rondônia" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-08-30. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
4. "Aikana Language and the Aikanã Indian Tribe". Native Languages of the Americas website. 2008. Archived from the original on 10 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
5. Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume I: Aikanã to Kandozi-Chapra. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-041940-5.
6. Van der Voort, Hein. 2005. Kwaza in a comparative perspective. International Journal of American Linguistics 71: 365–412.
7. Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
8. Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
9. ^ Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
10. da Silva, Maria de Fátima dos Santos (2012). Dicionário de raízes da língua aikanã. Guajará-Mirim: Universidade Federal de Rondônia.
11. Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume II: Kanoé to Yurakaré. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-043273-2.
12. dos Santos da Silva, Maria de Fátima (2012). Dicionário de raízes da língua aikanã (MA thesis). Guajará-Mirim: Universidade Federal de Rondônia. (PDF)

• Alain Fabre, 2005, Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: AIKANA

• Indigenous languages of Western Amazonia
• Languages of Brazil
• Language isolates of South America
• Endangered language isolates
• Subject–object–verb languages
• Mamoré–Guaporé linguistic area