Wounaan language

Wounaan
Noanamá
Woun Meu
Native to	Colombia, Panama
Ethnicity	Embera-Wounaan
Native speakers	10,800 (2007)
Language family	Chocoan Wounaan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	noa
Glottolog	woun1238
ELP	Waunana

The Wounaan language, also known as Noanamá and Woun Meu, is a Chocoan language, with around 10,000 speakers on the border between Panama and Colombia.

Phonology

The following tables show the vowel and consonant phonemes of Wounaan, transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Vowels

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
				unrounded	rounded
Close	oral	i		ɯ	u
	nasal	ĩ		ɯ̃	ũ
Close-mid	oral	e		ɤ	o
	nasal	ẽ		ɤ̃	õ
Open	oral		a
	nasal		ã

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d		g
Affricate
Fricative			s	ɕ		h
Nasal		m	n
Approximant			l	j	w
Trill			r
Flap			ɾ

• /ɕ/ occurs as [t͡ʃ] across dialects, and as [ʃ] at the end of a word.

References

• Mejía, Gustavo (2000). "Presentación y descripción fonológica y morfosintáctica del waunana". In González de Pérez, María Stella; Rodríguez de Montes, María Luisa (eds.). Lenguas indígenas de Colombia: una visión descriptiva. Santafé de Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. pp. 85–96.
• Murillo Miranda, José Manuel; Marín Esquivel, Rebeca (2022). "Notas sobre la fonología del waunana de Panamá". Revista Lengua y Literatura (in Spanish). 8 (1): 17–39. doi:10.5377/rll.v8i1.14513.