Emberá Catío

Not to be confused with Catio language (Chibchan).

Catío
Emberá-Catío
Native to	Colombia, Panama
Native speakers	(15,000 cited 1992)
Language family	Chocoan Emberá Northern Catío
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cto
Glottolog	embe1260
ELP	Emberá-Catío

Catío Emberá (Catío, Katío) is an indigenous American language spoken by the Embera people of Colombia and Panama.

The language was spoken by 15,000 people in Colombia, and a few dozen in Panama, according to data published in 1992. 90 to 95% of the speakers are monolingual with a 1% literacy rate. The language is also known as Eyabida, and like most Embera languages goes by the name Embena 'human'.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	t͡ʃʰ	kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	t͡ʃʼ	kʼ
	voiced	b	d	d͡ʒ
Fricative	aspirated		sʰ			h
	ejective		sʼ
Nasal		m	n
Rhotic	trill		r
	tap		ɾ
Semivowel		w

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
			unrounded	rounded
High	i ĩ		ɯ ɯ̃	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ		o õ
Low		a ã

Writing system

Catio is written with the Latin script.

Vowels

a

ã

e

ẽ

i

ĩ

o

õ

u

ũ

ʉ

ʉ̃

Consonants

m

k

b

p

t

ch

s

z

g

j

r

rr

d

n

y

w

ñ

Notes

Bibliography

• Silva Vallejo, Fabio; Majore, Iván Antonio Dominico (2018). "Los emberá katio del Alto Sinú-Córdoba". Oraloteca (in Spanish). 9: 64–84. Archived from the original on 5 October 2022. Retrieved 27 July 2022.