Pémono (Pémono: pémono[1]) is an extinct Cariban language or dialect of Mapoyo language that was spoken by only an eighty-year-old woman, Juanita García,[2] when first identified in 1998 in Venezuela. The ethnic population now speaks Spanish. It became extinct some time after that.[1]
| Pémono | |
|---|---|
| pémono | |
| Native to | Venezuela |
| Extinct | after 2000, with the death of Juanita García |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pev |
| Glottolog | pemo1245 |
History
editIn 1998, researcher Marie-Claude Mattéi-Müller identified a linguistic variety very similar to Mapoyo which was spoken upriver from San Juan de Manapiare by Juanita García, who was estimated to be around 80 years old at the time. She had lived with the Yawarana for some time, though still remembered well the language of her parents, which she called pémono, a term with unknown origins. This language was known to the oldest of the Yawarana, who could describe a number of linguistic traits of it. The collected data for Pemono affirm that it is a variety of Mapoyo, and constitutes a sort of link between Mapoyo and Yawarana.[2]
Geographical distribution
editThe last speaker of Pemono, Juanita García, lived in a Yawarana rancherío along the Majagua River.[2]
Classification
editPemono is closely related to Mapoyo, and has been described as a variety of it.[2] Traditionally, Mapoyo was included in the Venezuelan branch of Cariban.[3] Terrence Kaufman's outdated[4] (1994) classification classifies Mapoyo and Yawarana (as a singular language) in his Central branch of Cariban, along with Yeꞌkuana, Apalaí, and Wayana, and the extinct Cumanagoto and closely related Chaima.[5] However, Tania Granadillo (2019) disputes the inclusion of Mapoyo in the Venezuelan branch, claiming that it does not share certain linguistic features with the other languages classified as Venezuelan Cariban.[6]
Phonology
editReferences
edit- 1 2 3 Mattei-Muller, Marie-Claude (2003). "Pémono: eslabón perdido entre mapoyo y yawarana: lenguas caribes ergativas de la Guayana noroccidental de Venezuela" (PDF). Amérindia: revue d'ethnolinguistique amérindienne. 28: 33–54.
- 1 2 3 4 Seiler-Baldinger, Annemarie; Mattei-Müller, Marie-Claude (2017), "Los Yawarana (Yabarana)", Los aborígenes de Venezuela V, Caracas: La Salle, pp. 127–209, retrieved 2026-05-30
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2026). "Mapoyo". Glottolog 5.3. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ↑ Gildea, Spike (2012-01-13), Campbell, Lyle; Grondona, Verónica (eds.), "Linguistic studies in the Cariban family", The Indigenous Languages of South America, DE GRUYTER, pp. 441–494, doi:10.1515/9783110258035.441, ISBN 978-3-11-025513-3, retrieved 2026-05-30
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link) - ↑ Seiler-Baldinger, Annemarie; Mattei-Müller, Marie-Claude (2017), "Los Yawarana (Yabarana)", Los aborígenes de Venezuela V, Caracas: La Salle, pp. 127–209, retrieved 2026-05-30
- ↑ Granadillo, Tania (2019). "El mapoyo y la rama venezolana de lenguas caribes" (PDF). Cuadernos de Etnolingüística. 7 (1): 43–55.
External links
edit- Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.[This citation is dated, and should be substituted with a specific edition of Ethnologue]