Carapana language

Not to be confused with Andoquero language.

Carapana
Karapanã
Mõxtã
Native to	Colombia, Brazil
Ethnicity	Karapanã
Native speakers	500 (2012)
Language family	Tucanoan Eastern Central Tatuyo–Carapana Carapana
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cbc
Glottolog	cara1272
ELP	Carapana

Carapana (Karapanã, Carapana-tapuya, Möxdöá) is a Tucanoan language of Colombia and Brazil.

Phonology

Carapana has 11 consonants.

Consonants of Carapana

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d		g
Fricative			s
Tap			ɾ
Approximant		w		j		h

• /p, t, k/ alternate with /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/.
• /b, d, g/ become [m, n, ŋ] before nasal vowels. They become [ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑg] after nasal vowels.
• /b, d/ alternate with [ᵐb, ⁿd] at the beginning of a word, e.g., báì /báì/ [báì]~[ᵐbáì] 'younger brother'.
• /s/ alternates with /t͡s/.
• /ɾ/ has three variants
  • /n̆/ next to nasal vowels
  • /ɺ/ before oral vowels, at the beginning of a word, and
  • /ɾ/ elsewhere.
• /w, h/ are often [β, x] before front vowels.
• /j/ alternates with pre-stopped [ᵈj].
• /w, j, h/ become [w̃, j̃, h̃] before nasal vowels.

It also has 6 vowels and their nasalized forms, plus high and low tones.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ	ɨ ɨ̃	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ		o õ
Open		a ã

• The mid vowels /e, ẽ, o, õ/ are phonetically [ɛ, ɛ̃, ɔ, ɔ̃].
• Mid tone is an allotone of the low tone.

Orthography

Metzger and Metzger use the following orthography.

IPA	Orthography
a	a
e	e
i	i
o	o
u	u
ɨ	ʉ
ã	ã
ẽ	ẽ
ĩ	ĩ
õ	õ
ũ	ũ
ɨ̃	ʉ̃
b	b, m
d	d, n
j	y, ñ
g	g, gu
h	j
k	c, qu
p	p
r	r
s	s
t	t
w	w
◌́	◌́
◌̀	not marked

Works cited

• Metzger, Ronald; Metzger, Lois (1973). "Fonología del carapana". Sistemas fonológicos de idiomas columbianos (in Spanish). Vol. 2. Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. pp. 121–132.