Yanomaman languages

Yanomaman
Geographic distribution	Amazon
Ethnicity	Yąnomamö
Linguistic classification	One of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions	Ninam–Yanomam–Yaroamë Sanöma Yãnoma (unclassified)
Language codes
Glottolog	yano1268
ELP
Yanomaman languages location   Yanomamö   Ninam   Yanomám   Sanumá   Ỹaroamë

Yanomaman, also as Yanomam, Yanomáman, Yamomámi, and Yanomamana (also Shamatari, Shirianan), is a family of languages spoken by about 20,000 Yanomami people in southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil (Roraima, Amazonas).

Subdivision

Distribution of the Yanomaman languages in South America

Ferreira et al. (2019)

Ferreira, Machado & Senra (2019) divide the Yanomaman family into two branches, with six languages in total.

• Yanomaman
  • Ninam-Yanomam-Yaroamë
    • Nimam
      • Ninam (also known as Yanami, Yanami-Ninami) - 900 speakers in Venezuela and Brazil
    • Yanomam-Yaroamë
      • Yanomám (also known as Waiká) - 6,000 speakers mainly in Brazil
      • Yanomamö (also known as Yanomame, Yanomami) - 20,000 speakers mainly in Venezuela
      • Yaroamë (also known as Jawari) - 400 speakers in Brazil
      • Yãnoma - 178 speakers in Brazil
  • Sanumá
    • Sanumá (also known as Tsanuma, Sanima) - 5,100 speakers mainly in Venezuela

Sanumá is the most lexically distinct. Yanomamö has the most speakers (20,000), while Yãnoma has the fewest (178).

Jolkesky (2016)

Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):

(† = extinct)

• Yanomami
  • Sanuma
  • Yanam
  • Yanomami, Central
    • Yaroame
    • Yanomam, Yanomamï

Genetic relations

Yanomaman is usually not connected with any other language family. Joseph Greenberg has suggested a relationship between Yanomaman and Macro-Chibchan. Migliazza (1985) has suggested a connection with Panoan and Chibchan. Neither proposal is widely accepted.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Irantxe, Taruma, Katukina-Katawixi, Puinave-Kak, Tupi, Arawa, Guahibo, and Jivaro language families due to contact.

Name

Yanomami is not what the Yanomami call themselves and is instead a word in their language meaning "man" or "human being". The American anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon adopted this term with the transcription Ya̧nomamö to use as an exonym to refer to the culture and, by extension, the people. The word is pronounced with nasalisation of all the vowels. As the phoneme indicated by the spelling 'ö' does not occur in English, variations in spelling and pronunciation of the name have developed, with Yanomami, Yanomamö, Ya̧nomamö or Ya̦nomamö, and Yanomama all being used. Some anthropologists have used the spelling Yanomamɨ to indicate the vowel [ɨ], but because many presses and typesetters eliminate the diacritical marks, the pronunciation /i/ and spelling of the name with ⟨i⟩ has emerged.

Characteristics

Phonology

Yanomaman languages have a phonological distinction between oral and nasal vowels. There are seven basic vowel qualities: /a e i o u ɨ ə/, which can occur as oral or nasal sounds.

Yanomaman vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	Oral	Nasal	Oral	Nasal	Oral	Nasal
Close	i	ĩ	ɨ ⟨y⟩ or ⟨ö⟩	ɨ̃ ⟨ỹ⟩	u	ũ
Mid	e	ẽ	ə ⟨ë⟩		o	õ
Open			a	ã

In the table above, the practical orthography is shown in angle brackets below the phoneme, if different.

The Yanomaman languages present extensive nasal harmony. When in Yanomaman words, a vowel is phonetically nasalized, all vowels that follow within the same word are also nasalized. The consonants of Yanomama are shown in the table below:

	Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Stop	p	t tʰ			k	ʔ
Fricative		s	ʃ	j		h
Approximant	w	l

Syntax

Yanomaman languages are SOV, suffixing, predominantly head-marking with elements of dependent-marking. Its typology is highly polysynthetic. Adjectival concepts are expressed using stative verbs, there are no true adjectives. Adjectival stative verbs follow their noun.

There are five demonstratives which have to be chosen according to distance from speaker and hearer and also according to visibility, a feature shared by many native Brazilian languages such as Tupian ones including Old Tupi. Demonstratives, numerals, classifiers and quantifiers precede the head noun.

There is a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession, again a common areal feature, and a rich system of verbal classifiers, almost a hundred, they are obligatory and appear just before the verb root. The distinction between inclusive and exclusive 1st person plural, a feature shared by most Native American languages, has been lost in Yanam and Yanomam dialects, but retained in the others.

Yanomami morphosyntactic alignment is ergative–absolutive, which means that the subject of an intransitive verb is marked the same way as the object of a transitive verb, while the subject of a transitive verb is marked differently. The ergative case marker is -ny. The verb agrees with both the subject and object.

Evidentiality in the Yanomami dialect is marked on the verb and has four levels: eyewitness, deduced, reported, and assumed. Other dialects have fewer levels.

The object of the verb can be incorporated into it, especially if it is not in focus:

Non-incorporated:

kamijə-ny

1sg-ERG

sipara

axe

ja-puhi-i

1sg-want-DYN

kamijə-ny sipara ja-puhi-i

1sg-ERG axe 1sg-want-DYN

'I want an/the axe'

Incorporated:

kamijə-ny

1sg-ERG

ja-sipara-puhi-i

1sg-axe-want-DYN

kamijə-ny ja-sipara-puhi-i

1sg-ERG 1sg-axe-want-DYN

'I want [it], the axe'

Relative clauses are formed by adding a relativizing ('REL' below) suffix to the verb:

wãro-n

man-ERG

shama

tapir

shyra-wei

kill-REL

ware-ma

eat-COMPL

wãro-n shama shyra-wei ware-ma

man-ERG tapir kill-REL eat-COMPL

'the man who killed the tapir ate it'

Sanuma dialect also has a relative pronoun ĩ.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Yanomaman language varieties.

gloss	Shirianá	Parimiteri	Sanemá	Pubmatari	Waica	Karime	Paucosa	Surára
one	kauitxamhét	chaamí					muliman	mahón
two	tasíma	polakabí					botokaki	porakabö
three	tasimaimhét	hiːriːpólagʔa						prukatabö
head	bel-éhe	pil-héawan	pi-hé	pei-hé		pei-yáhe	ne-umgipe	peːiua-hé
ear	beli-yaméke	pilmórokwiːn	pi-xinkawán	yímikek		pei-yameke		peːiua-niumekakeː
tooth	beli-uáke	pil-nákwan	pi-nakuán	pei-uák		pei-uáke	ne-parike	peːiua-uáke
man	horóme	waro	wandzyé	wanodá	ũálõ	uáru	uau	uhanó
water	mãepe	madzyu	maduú	mãõ		mahu	maú	maú
fire	oáke	kwárogʔe	kuadák	koawáke		oáke	uauká	kauːwaká
stone	mamáke	muadamiːn				máma	mama
sun	belipshí	pilmórokwiːn	pilmoró	motóka		motúka	mitukaki	peniboːínshi
manioc	nazygóke	naasʔís					nashita	makóke
jaguar	déhe	póleawan	poʔlé	íla		téhe		ührá

Bibliography

• .

Dictionaries

• Müller, Marie-Claude Mattei. (2007) Diccionario ilustrado yanomami-español / español-yanomami. Caracas: Epsilon Libros. 782pp.

External links

• ELAR archive of Documentation and Description of the Yanomama of Papiu
• The Yanomami Language Archived 2017-02-22 at the Wayback Machine
• Yanomámi (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)