Warekena language

Not to be confused with Baré language or Warekena Velha language.

Warekena
Baniwa of Maroa Baniwa of Guainía
Guarequena
Native to	Brazil, Venezuela
Native speakers	650 (2001–2006) ca. 200 (1999)
Language family	Arawakan Northern Upper Amazon Orinoco Warekena
Dialects	Warekena do rio Xié
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gae
Glottolog	guar1293
ELP	Guarequena

Warekena (Guarequena), or more precisely Warekena of Xié, is an Arawakan language of Brazil and of Maroa Municipality in Venezuela, spoken near the Guainia River. It is one of several languages which go by the generic name Baré and Baniwa/Baniva – in this case, distinguished as Baniva de Maroa or Baniva de Guainía.

There may be 10 speakers in Brazil and 200 in Venezuela, per Aikhenvald (1999).

Kaufman (1994) classified it in a Warekena group of Western Nawiki Upper Amazonian, Aikhenvald (1999) in Eastern Nawiki.

Personal pronouns in Warekena are formed by adding an emphatic suffix -ya to the cross-referencing personal prefixes.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
				cen.	lat.
Nasal		m	n
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ts				k
	voiced	b	d	dz				ɡ
Fricative	voiceless					ʂ
	voiced					ʐ
Rhotic	tap			ɾ	ɺ
	trill			r
Approximant		w					j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e
Low		a

/u/ can also range to [o].

Grammar

Unmarked constituent order is AVO, VS_o, S_aV, or S_ioV.

AVO:

wa-hã

then-

waʃi

jaguar

yutʃia-hã

kill-

ema

tapir

wa-hã waʃi yutʃia-hã ema

then-PAUS jaguar kill-PAUS tapir

"Then the jaguar killed the tapir"

VS_o:

ʃupe-hẽ

many-

ʃiani-pe

child-PL

ʃupe-hẽ ʃiani-pe

many-PAUS child-PL

"Children are many"

S_aV:

peya

one

nu-yaɺitua

1sg-brother

wiyua

die

peya nu-yaɺitua wiyua

one 1sg-brother die

"One of my brothers dies"

S_ioV:

nu-yue

1sg-for

mawali

hungry

nu-yue mawali

1sg-for hungry

"I am hungry"

Indirect objects tend to be placed immediately after the predicate.