Baniwa language
| Baniwa | |
|---|---|
| Karu | |
| Tapuya | |
| Native to | Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil |
| Ethnicity | Baniwa people |
|
Native speakers
|
12,000 (2001–2007) |
|
Arawakan
|
|
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: bwi – Baniwa kpc – Curripako |
| Glottolog |
bani1255 (Baniwa)curr1243 (Curripaco)
|
Baniwa (Baniva), or Karu, or in older sources Itayaine (Iyaine), is an Arawakan language spoken in Colombia, Venezuela, and Amazonas, Brazil. It forms a subgroup with the Tariana, Piapoco, Resígaro and Guarequena languages. There are 10,000 speakers.
Aikhenvald (1999) considers the three main varieties to be dialects; Kaufman (1994) considers them to be distinct languages, in a group he calls "Karu". They are:
Various (sub)dialects of all three are called Tapuya. All are spoken by the Baniwa people. Ruhlen lists all as "Izaneni"; Greenberg's Adzánani (= Izaneni) presumably belongs here.
Baniwa has active–stative alignment. This means that the subject of an intransitive clause is sometimes marked in the same way as the agent of a transitive clause, and sometimes marked in the same way as the patient of a transitive clause. In Baniwa alignment is realized through verbal agreement, namely prefixes and enclitics.
Prefixes are used to mark:
Enclitics are used to mark:
The differences between active and stative intransitive clauses can be illustrated below:
Baniwa has an interesting system of noun classification that combines a gender system with a noun classifier system. Baniwa has two genders: feminine and nonfeminine. Feminine gender agreement is used to refer to female referents, whilst nonfeminine gender agreement is used for all other referents. The two genders are only distinguished in third person singular. Aihkenvald (2007) considers the bipartite gender system to be inherited from Proto-Arawak.
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