Rama language
| Rama | |
|---|---|
| Rama | |
| Native to | Nicaragua |
| Region | Rama Cay |
| Ethnicity | 900 Rama (2000) |
|
Native speakers
|
(24 cited 1989) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | rama1270 |
Rama is one of the indigenous languages of the Chibchan family spoken by the Rama people on the island of Rama Cay and south of lake Bluefields on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Other indigenous languages of this region include Miskito and Sumu (Craig 1992). Rama is one of the northernmost languages of the Chibchan family (Craig 1990:293).
The Rama language is severely endangered. Their language was described as "dying quickly for lack of use" as early as the 1860s (Pim & Seemann 1869:280). By 1980, the Rama were noted as having "all but lost their original ethnic language", and had become speakers of a form of English creole instead (Craig 1990:293). In 1992, only approximately 36 fluent speakers could be found among an ethnic population of 649 individuals in 1992 (Craig 1992). The number of speakers on Rama Cay island was only 4 in 1992. There have been several language revitalization efforts. The fieldwork for the first dictionary of Rama was done during this time by Robin Schneider, a graduate student from the University of Berlin (Rigby & Schneider 1989).
There are three basic vowel sounds: a, i and u. In addition to these, e and o have been introduced as distinct vowels in some foreign loanwords. Each vowel may be either short or long. Here the vowels are shown in standard Rama orthography (see for example Craig et al. 1988):
The following consonants are found (IPA transcriptions are shown where helpful):
Rama words have non-predictable stress.
Rama phonotactics includes notable consonant clusters at the beginning of words (e.g. psaarik "toucan", tkua "hot", nkiikna "man", mlingu "killed") and word-internally (e.g. alkwsi "speaks", salpka "fish"). Variations among speakers witness a tendency to simplify such clusters (e.g. nkiikna or kiikna "man", nsu- or su- "we, us, our").
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