Cashibo (Caxibo, Cacibo, Cachibo, Cahivo), Cacataibo, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Managua, or Hagueti is an indigenous language of Peru in the region of the Aguaytía, San Alejandro, and Súngaro rivers. It belongs to the Panoan language family.

Cashibo
Cacataibo
Native toPeru
EthnicityCashibo people
Native speakers
30003500 (2018)[1]
Panoan
  • Mainline Panoan
    • Cashibo
Dialects
  • Lower Aguaytía
  • Upper Aguaytía
  • Sungaroyacu
  • Nocaman
  • San Alejandro
Language codes
ISO 639-3cbr – inclusive code
Individual code:
nom  Nocamán (retired)
Glottologcash1251  Cashibo-Cacataibo
noca1240  Nocamán (retired)
ELPCashibo

Name

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The name Kashibo and its variants are an exonym and are derived from the word kashi 'bat' and the collective suffix -bo. Most Panoan-speaking peoples did not have ethnonyms and were thus known by other names applied to them by other groups. This designation was first attested in the late 18th century in colonial documents. The Kashibo themselves have attempted to change this name as they find it offensive due to its connotations with their supposed cannibalism; the names Uni, meaning 'people' in Kashibo, and Kakataibo (and its variant spelling Cacataibo) have been proposed as replacements. A number of authors report that Uni was preferred by the Kashibo, though this appears to be restricted to those living along the Sungaroyacu River; even there, it has not been well established. Cacataibo has been more widely used and even appears in the name of the Kashibo political organization. This term originally designated a subgroup of the Kashibo, is most likely derived from the Kashibo language itself, and apparently means ‘the very best ones’.[1]

History

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The Cashibo are first attested under the name Carapacho, derived from the Quechua words /qaɾa/ 'naked' and /patʂa/ 'belly', thus meaning 'a person who does not cover his belly'. Presumably the final -o in Carapacho is derived from a Spanish reanalysis of the original final /-a/ as a feminine marker.[1]

Classification

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The Panoan linguistic family, to which Kashibo belongs, was first proposed by Raoul de la Grasserie [eo] in 1888.[1]

Dialects

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Dialects of Cashibo are Lower Aguaytía, Upper Aguaytía, Sungaroyacu, San Alejandro, and the extinct Nokamán.[2] Günter Tessmann distinguished three subgroups of the Cashibo, further divided into 18 clans. Tessmann distinguished additionally the Nokamán, who were subsumed under the Cashibo by missionaries; their language is evidently a dialect of Cashibo. It is closest to te San Alejandro dialect; the two are the most divergent dialects.[1]

Phonology

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Consonants

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Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab.
Plosive p t k ʔ
Nasal m n ɲ
Tap/Flap ɾ
Affricate t͡s t͡ʃ
Fricative s ʂ ʃ
Approximant β̞ j w

The consonant inventory includes both a bilabial approximant, realized as [β̞], and a labial-velar approximant /w/.[1]

Vowels

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Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Mid e o
Open a

Back vowels /o/ and /u/ are phonetically realized as less rounded; [], [].[1]

Statistics

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The language is official along the Aguaytía, San Alejandro, and Súngaro rivers in Peru where it is most widely spoken. It is used in schools until third grade. There are not many monolinguals, although some women over the age of fifty are. There is five to ten percent literacy compared to fifteen to twenty-five percent literacy in Spanish as a second language. A Cashibo-Cacataibo dictionary has been compiled, and there is a body of literature, especially poetry.[3]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Zariquiey, Roberto (2022-12-31). A Grammar of Kakataibo. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110765816. ISBN 978-3-11-076581-6.
  2. Biondi, Roberto Zariquiey. 2013. Tessmann's <Nokamán>: a linguistic investigation of a mysterious Panoan group. Cadernos de Etnolingüística, volume 5, número 2, dezembro/2013.
  3. Cashibo-Cacataibo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  • Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
  • Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70414-3.
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