Shipibo language

Not to be confused with Juruá Kapanawa language.

Shipibo (also Shipibo-Conibo, Shipibo-Konibo) is a Panoan language spoken in Peru and Brazil by approximately 26,000 speakers. Shipibo is a recognized indigenous language of Peru.

Shipibo-Conibo
Shipibo
Native to	Peru
Region	Ucayali Region
Ethnicity	Shipibo-Conibo people
Native speakers	26,000 (2003)
Language family	Panoan Mainline Panoan Nawa Chama Shipibo-Conibo
Dialects	Shipibo–Konibo Kapanawa Xipináwa? †
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: shp – Shipibo-Conibo kaq – Tapiche Capanahua
Glottolog	ship1253

Dialects

A Shipibo jar

Shipibo has three attested dialects:

• Shipibo and Konibo (Conibo), which have merged
• Kapanawa of the Tapiche River, which is obsolescent

Extinct Xipináwa (Shipinawa) is thought to have been a dialect as well, but there is no linguistic data.

Phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs of Shipibo, from Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001:282)

Monophthong phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ ⟨i⟩		ɯ ɯ̃ ⟨e⟩
Mid			o õ ⟨o⟩
Open		a ã ⟨a⟩

• /i/ and /o/ are lower than their cardinal counterparts (in addition to being more front in the latter case): [i̞], [o̽], /ɯ/ is more front than cardinal [ɯ]: [ɯ̟], whereas /a/ is more close and more central [ɐ] than cardinal [a]. The first three vowels tend to be somewhat more central in closed syllables, whereas /ɯ/ before coronal consonants (especially /n, t, s/) can be as central as [ɨ].
• In connected speech, two adjacent vowels may be realized as a rising diphthong.

Nasal

• The oral vowels /i, ɯ, o, a/ are phonetically nasalized [ĩ, ɯ̃, õ, ã] after a nasal consonant, but the phonological behaviour of these allophones is different from the nasal vowel phonemes /ĩ, ɯ̃, õ, ã/.
• Oral vowels in syllables preceding syllables with nasal vowels are realized as nasal, but not when a consonant other than /w, j/ intervenes.

Unstressed

• The second one of the two adjacent unstressed vowels is often deleted.
• Unstressed vowels may be devoiced or even elided between two voiceless obstruents.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palato- alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩
Plosive		p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩			k ⟨c/qu⟩
Affricate			ts ⟨ts⟩		tʃ ⟨ch⟩
Fricative	voiceless		s ⟨s⟩	ʂ ⟨s̈h⟩	ʃ ⟨sh⟩		h ⟨j⟩
	voiced	β ⟨b⟩
Approximant		w ⟨hu⟩		ɻ ⟨r⟩	j ⟨y⟩

• /m, p, β/ are bilabial, whereas /w/ is labialized velar.
  • /β/ is most typically a fricative [β], but other realizations (such as an approximant [β̞], a stop [b] and an affricate [bβ]) also appear. The stop realization is most likely to appear in word-initial stressed syllables, whereas the approximant realization appears most often as onsets to non-initial unstressed syllables.
• /n, ts, s/ are alveolar [n, ts, s], whereas /t/ is dental [t̪].
• The /ʂ–ʃ/ distinction can be described as an apical–laminal one.
• /k/ is velar, whereas /j/ is palatal.
• Before nasal vowels, /w, j/ are nasalized [w̃, j̃] and may be even realized close to nasal stops [ŋʷ, ɲ].
• /w/ is realized as [w] before /a, ã/, as [ɥ] before /i, ĩ/ and as [ɰ] before /ɯ, ɯ̃/. It does not occur before /o, õ/.
• /ɻ/ is a very variable sound:
  • Intervocalically, it is realized either as continuant, with or without weak frication ([ɻ] or [ʐ]).
  • Sometimes (especially in the beginning of a stressed syllable) it can be realized as a postalveolar affricate [d̠͡z̠], or a stop-approximant sequence [d̠ɹ̠].
  • It can also be realized as a postalveolar flap [ɾ̠].

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Elias-Ulloa, Jose (2000). El Acento en Shipibo (Stress in Shipibo). Thesis. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima - Peru.
• Elias-Ulloa, Jose (2005). Theoretical Aspects of Panoan Metrical Phonology: Disyllabic Footing and Contextual Syllable Weight. Ph.D. Dissertation. Rutgers University. ROA 804 [1].
• Fleck, David W. (10 October 2013). "Panoan Languages and Linguistics" (PDF). Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History (99): 1–112. doi:10.5531/sp.anth.0099. hdl:2246/6448. ISSN 0065-9452.
• 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.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
• Loriot, James and Barbara E. Hollenbach. 1970. "Shipibo paragraph structure." Foundations of Language 6: 43–66. (This was the seminal Discourse Analysis paper taught at SIL in 1956–7.)
• Loriot, James, Erwin Lauriault, and Dwight Day, compilers. 1993. Diccionario shipibo - castellano. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 31. Lima: Ministerio de Educación and Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. 554 p. (Spanish zip-file available online http://www.sil.org/americas/peru/show_work.asp?id=928474530143&Lang=eng) This has a complete grammar published in English by SIL only available through SIL.
• Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109

External links

• Shipibo-Conibo at Ethnologue
• Lengua Shipibo at Proel
• Shipibo-Conibo (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)