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Mapoyo, or Mapoyo–Yavarana, is a Carib language spoken along the Suapure and Parguaza Rivers, Venezuela. The ethnic population of Mapoyo proper is about 365. Yabarana dialect is perhaps extinct; 20 speakers were known in 1977. An additional dialect, Pémono, was discovered in 1998. It was spoke only by an 80-year-old woman and has since gone extinct.

Phonology

Consonants

• /h/ can be heard as a palatal when preceding a voiceless plosive.
• /n/ can be heard as a velar when preceding a velar /k/.
• /β/ can be heard as a voiced stop , when after a voiceless plosive or glottal /ʔ/.
• /s/ can be heard with an allophone of when word-initially, or after a glottal /ʔ/.
• /j/ can be heard as a voiced fricative , when before a back vowel.

Vowels

• Sounds /i, u/ are reduced to in syllable-final position.
• /ɘ/ is heard as a lower sound when preceding /h/, or following /β/.
• /a/ is heard as when occurring after an initial bilabial sound.

References

1. ^ Mapoyo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Yabarana at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Pémono at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Not the same as Pemon
3. Medina, Francia (1997). Introducción a la Fonética y a la Fonología Mapoyo (Caribe). Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.

• Granadillo, Tania. 2019. El mapoyo y la rama venezolana de lenguas caribes. Cadernos de Etnolingüística, volume 7, número 1, julho/2019, p. 43-55.

External links

• Yabarana word list

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• Languages extinct in the 1990s
• Languages extinct in the 2000s
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