Amarakaeri (north) and Watipaeri (south). The shadowed area is the probable earlier distribution of the Harakmbut language.
HarakmbutorHarakmbet (stress on the second syllable) is the native language of the Harakmbut people of Peru. It is spoken along the Madre de Dios and Colorado Rivers, in the pre-contact country of the people. There are two dialects that remain vital: Amarakaeri (Arakmbut) and Watipaeri (Huachipaeri), which are reported to be mutually intelligible. The relationship between speakers of the two dialects is hostile.[2]
As of 2012, Amarakaeri is still being learned by children in some communities.[1] There 5% literacy compared to 75% literacy in the second language Spanish.[1] They live in the communities of Puerto Luz, Shintuya, San José Del Karene, Barranco Chico, Boca Inambari, Boca Ishiriwe, Puerto Azul, Masenawa and Kotsimba. The name Amarakaeri, from wa-mba-arak-a-eri "murderers", is considered derogatory; the endonym Arakmbut is preferred.[2]
Speakers of Watipaeri (wa-tipa-eri) are mostly concentrated in the indigenous communities of Queros and Santa Rosa de Huacaria, in the Peruvian rainforest. Their members have been experiencing cultural loss, including the complexities of their language, particularly because of the generational gap between the elders and the youth.[3]
Amarakaeri (autonym: Arakmbut), the most widely spoken dialect, is spoken in the indigenous communities of Puerto Luz, Shintuya, San José Del Karene, Barranco Chico, Boca Inambari, Boca Ishiriwe, Puerto Azul, Masenawa, and Kotsimba. There is an ethnic population of 1043 as 2007.
Watipaeri, with an ethnic population of 392 in Queros and Santa Rosa de Huacaria
Arasaeri has an ethnic population of 317 in Arazaeri (arãsã-eri, people of the Marcatapa River; spoken in Arazaeri)
Pukirieri has an ethnic population of 168 (pukiri-eri, people of the Pukiri River)
Sapiteri and Kisambaeri (ethnic population of 47, in Barranco Chico)
Toyoeri: extinct (toyo(dn)-eri, people downriver)
There are at most only a handful of fluent speakers remaining for any of these dialects.[2]
The genetic position of Toyoeri is disputed. Some researchers have divided the dialects into two main groups, with Watipaeri and Toyoeri phonetically and lexically somewhat different from Amarakaeri/Arakmbut, Arasaeri and Sapiteri. Data from Aza (1936) and Peck (1958), however, suggest that Arakmbut is different from the other four, which are similar to each other.[2]
Harakmbut has been accepted as a language isolate since the 1960s.[2] Adelaar (2000, 2007)[5][6] presents mainly lexical evidence that it is related to the Katukinan family of Brazil; influence from Tupian languages also suggest an origin in Brazil. Campbell (2012) accepted the evidence as "reasonably persuasive".[7]
Jolkesky (2011) concurs, and adds Arawan to the family.[8]Glottolog notes "promising lexical links with Katukina [...] with a fair amount of near-identical forms, but the systems of pronouns, numerals or bound morphology show no cognation.[citation needed]
When adjacent to /a/, /e/ tends to rise to /i/ or /j/. This can cause palatalization of a preceding consonant, e.g. kate-apo 'why?' as [ˈkatiabɔ]or[ˈkaʧabɔ]. Similarly, /o/ tends to rise to /u/ or /w/ when adjacent to /a/ or /e/, e.g. ĩ-nõ-põ-ẽ-ỹ 'I know' as [ĩˈnɔ̃pwɛ̃j̃].[2]
The phonemic status of [h] and [ʔ] is not clear. They vary between dialects, but also between speakers and even with the same speaker in Arakmbut. They may be epenthetic consonants used to demarcate syllables that do not have an onset or coda consonant.[2]
/t k n s/ occur in syllable codas, and /ŋ/ only in syllable codas.[2]
Stops tend toward [bdɡ] in intervocalic position. (In Toyoeri and Sapiteri, this has only been reported for /k/.) Among younger people, and often among their elders, the alveolars /t n/ palatalize to [t͜ʃ] and [ɲ] (or[nd͜ʒ]) before /i, ĩ/; /s/ palatalizes to [ʃ] before /i, ĩ/ and /u, ũ/. (In Toyoeri and Sapiteri, this has only been reported for /t/.)[2]
The nasal consonants have different realizations, depending on whether adjacent vowels are oral or nasal, with /m/ and /n/ affected before an oral vowel, and /n/ and /ŋ/ affected after one:
Nasal allophones
V_
Ṽ_
_V
_Ṽ
m
m
m
mb
m
n
dn
n
nd
n
ŋ
ɡŋ
ŋ
—
This allophonic variation is reflected in the community orthography, and the same pattern has been reported for Watipaeri, Arasaeri, Toyoeri and Sapiteri.[2]
The nature of Harakmbut nasality has yet to be fully elucidated, and in Amarakaeri at least there is some free variation of allophones. For instance, 'five' has been attested as both [waˈmaʔnɛ̃ŋ] and [waˈmbaʔnɛ̃ŋ]. Nonetheless, there is a phonemic distinction of vowel nasalization after nasal consonants, as in the proper name /mɔɾimɔ̃/.[2]
Stress is on the penultimate syllable, not counting inflectional suffixes, which do not change stress placement in a word.[2]
Aza Martínez, J. P. (1936). Vocabulario español-arasairi. Lima: San Martín y Cía. BACELAR, L. N. (1992). Fonologia preliminar da língua Kanoê. Brasilia: UnB.
Peck, Ch. (2008 [1979]). Toyeri y Sapiteri: un informe preliminar de la fonología y el vocabulario. (Datos Etno-Lingüísticos, 67). Lima: Ministerio de Educación and Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Tripp, R. (1995). Diccionario Amarakaeri-Castellano. (Serie Lingüística Peruana, 34). Yarinacocha: Ministerio de Educación / Summer Institute of Linguistics.
^ abcdefghijklmnoHarakmbut
An van linden, "Harakmbut". In Patience Epps and Lev Michael, eds, Amazonian Languages, An International Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton
^Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume I: Aikanã to Kandozi-Chapra. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN978-3-11-041940-5.
^Willem Adelaar (2000) Propuesta de un nuevo vínculo genético entre dos grupos lingüísticos indígenas de la Amazonía occidental: Harakmbut y Katukina. In Luis Miranda Esquerre (ed.) Actas del I Congreso de Lenguas Indígenas de Sudamérica, 219–236. Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima.
^—— (2007) Ensayo de clasificación del katawixí dentro del conjunto harakmbut-katukina. In Figueroa, Garay & Mori (eds.) Lenguas indígenas de América del Sur: Estudios descriptivo-tipológicos y sus contribuciones para la lingüística teórica, 159–169. Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas.
^Campbell, Lyle (2012). "Classification of the indigenous languages of South America". In Grondona, Verónica; Campbell, Lyle (eds.). The Indigenous Languages of South America. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 59–166. ISBN978-3-11-025513-3.
Alain Fabre, 2005, Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos, Harakmbet – Lengua aislada (language isolate) (in Spanish)
