Talk:Kalinago language

Merge with Igneri language

Per concerns I brought up at Igneri language, I have begun (re)merging that article into this one. It appears most sources use the terms "Igneri" and "Island Carib" interchangeably.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:03, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Modern Eyeri

Modern Eyeri is the revived version of Island Carib. The reasons why the information presented in a separate Wikipedia article is because: Island Carib refers to both the Karina language and Arawakan language of the Caribbean spoken by the natives of the Caribbean. Modern Eyeri is only the Arawakan language. Am working towards reediting the Modern Eyeri article as there still are a few mistakes within the article. User talk:Mabrikananixi

You don't have any sources. Without sources, I'm going to conclude that "Modern Eyeri" is a hoax, bullshit, or wishful thinking. You need WP:RS's that (a) it actually exists, and (b) that it's as you describe it. Merging the articles,, you might want to present your sources here before trying to recreate it. — kwami (talk) 10:22, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Phonology charts

My edits keep getting reverted, but the current vowel chart does not match Josephs 2019.

The six vowels she includes in the chart on page 25 are /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /ɨ/. As for nasalized vowels, she says "Nasalized vowels are probably not phonemic in Kalinago, but rather some nasalized vowels stem from the elision of a nasalized consonant." (page 44) and "Nasalization of vowels near nasal consonants is common in the world’s languages, and are usually not phonemic. Similarly, it seems that though Breton might have been able to hear nasalized vowels, they were not a distinct phoneme of the Kalinago languages." (page 45)

@Fdom5997: If you have a source for phonemic nasalization of vowels, then add the citation to the chart. I don't see any point in anything more than a note under the chart (as with [s]) for nasalization. That's like separating out the [tʰ] of ⟨top⟩ and the [t] of ⟨stop⟩ when listing the phonemes of English. Snowman304|talk 23:03, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok so on the nasal vowels, I can confirm that Josephs does state that in the source as you cited. However I do see another source that lists them as phonemic, which is Taylor (1955), "Phonemes of the Hopkins (British Honduras) Dialect of Island Carib". Although that may be an older source that has since been updated.

As for the status of the /ɕ/ phoneme also being heard as [s], I can tell you that on pages 32-34 of Josephs (2019), she states that "This inventory of fricatives is typologically unusual initially but with the inclusion of [s] as a variant for /ɕ/ it becomes less unusual". She then quotes Breton & Besada (1997:221) saying "it is twisted, it is tangled; Some pronounce all the words that start with s like ch, the rest pronounce like s or c but very few, it’s use will be observed."

I personally believe that it should be put in the phoneme chart, as it is displayed in some words written phonemically on pg. 34. Fdom5997 (talk) 05:16, 23 September 2025 (UTC)