Mashco Piro is a poorly attested Arawakan language spoken in Peru, by the Mashco Piro or Nomole (meaning 'brothers' or 'countrymen' in Mashco Piro and Yine). Language documentation is limited, since the Mashco Piro are highly nomadic hunter-gatherers[1] who avoid contact with outsiders.
| Mashco Piro | |
|---|---|
| Nomole | |
| Native to | Peru |
| Ethnicity | Mashco Piro |
Native speakers | 200 (2012)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cuj |
| Glottolog | mash1270 |
| ELP | Mashco Piro |
Classification
editIt is very similar to the Piro (Yine) language, with an estimated 60% inherent intelligibility.[1] Terrence Kaufman (1994) considered it a dialect of Piro;[2] Alexandra Aikhenvald (1999) suggests it may rather be a dialect of Iñapari.[3] According to the Yine, the language of the Mashco Piro is more archaic than modern Yine, and is between 50 to 80% comprehensible with it.[4]
Phonology
editA tentative sketch of Mashco-Piro phonology is presented below.[5]
Consonants
edit| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | g | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʃ | ç | h | ||
| voiced | β | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Flap | ɾ | ||||||
| Glide | w | j | |||||
[ʔ] only occurs word-finally and may not be phonemic. In contrast with Yine, Mashco-Piro /h/ is not nasalized. The four voiced obstruents are unlikely to be phonemic, as is the palatal nasal [ɲ], therefore making the Mashco-Piro consonant inventory identical to that of Yine, though the former lacks the alveolar and palatal affricates /ts, cç/, which are suspected to occur but are unattested in the data.[5]
Vowels
edit| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | tense | i | ||
| lax | ɪ | ɯ | ||
| Mid | tense | e eː | ə | o õ |
| lax | ɛː | |||
| Open | a aː | |||
[ɪ] occurs exclusively before /ɾ/ and is likely an allophone of /i/ in that environment. [õ] is evidently an allophone of /o/ before a nasal consonant. [ə] is also considered an allophone of /e/. Presumably Mashco-Piro also has contrastive vowel length, though this is not well attested. Its phonemic vowel inventory is thus likely identical to that of Yine:[5]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i (iː) | ɯ (ɯː) | |
| Mid | e eː | o (oː) | |
| Open | a aː |
Vocabulary
editAround 300 words in the language were recorded.[5]
References
edit- 1 2 3 Mashco Piro at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ↑ Moseley, Christopher; Asher, R. E.; Tait, Mary (1994), Atlas of the world's languages, London ; New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-01925-5
- ↑ Dixon, R. M. W., ed. (1999). The Amazonian languages. Cambridge language surveys (1. publ ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-521-57021-3.
- ↑ "An Isolated Tribe Is Emerging From Peru's Amazonian Wilderness". Science. 2025-03-15. Retrieved 2025-03-15.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Parker, Steve. "A fragmentary sketch of Mashco Piro phonology, or, Mom, look what I can do with just 24 items!". GIALens.