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Arára is a Cariban language of Pará, Brazil. It is spoken by the Arara and perhaps other related groups.

Arára forms part of the Kampot dialect cluster along with Ikpeng, Apiaká do Tocantins, Parirí, and Yarumá.

Phonology

Consonants

Two of the sixteen consonants, /ʙ̥, h/ occur infrequently. /ʙ̥/ only occurs in expressive words, or before the vowel /u/. /h/ only occurs after a coronal consonant, like /a/ or /u/. There is also a specially rare occurrence of two implosive consonants, /ɓ/ and /ɗ/.

Vowels

Area

The language is spoken by a people which includes groups that are still uncontacted. They live mainly in three villages: Cachoeira Seca, Laranjal and Maia. However, the natives of the latter have switched to Portuguese, while 85 speakers still remain in Cachoeira Seca and 250 in Laranjal.

Animal talk

Linguist Isaac Costa de Souza studied the language and concluded some words were modified when used to talk to different animals. The table below shows some modified words used when speaking to a capuchin monkey.

Different modifications are used according to the species of animal being addressed. The word ikpa, for example, might be modified as tɔkpa when addressing a dog, or as ĩkpã when addressing a howler monkey. Specific modifications may be used when talking to woodpeckers, tortoises, and coatis, among other animals.

References

1. Arára at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Carvalho, Fernando O. de (2020). Tocantins Apiaká, Parirí and Yarumá as Members of the Pekodian Branch (Cariban). Revista Brasileira de Línguas Indígenas - RBLI. Macapá, v. 3, n. 1, p. 85-93, 2020.
3. ^ Isaac Costa de Souza, 2010, A Phonological Description of "Pet Talk" in Arara Archived 2013-10-12 at the Wayback Machine, M.A. thesis, University of North Dakota.

External links

• Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang, Will (2012). "Phonological inventory of Arára, Pará". The South American Phonological Inventory Database (version 1.1.3 ed.). Berkeley: University of California: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Digital Resource.

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