Yukpa language

Yukpa
Yukpa
Yupka wonkü
Native to	Venezuela, Colombia
Ethnicity	Yukpa people
Native speakers	6,000 (2007–2009)
Language family	Cariban (unclassified) Yupka languages Yukpa; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yup
Glottolog	yukp1241
ELP	Yukpa

Yukpa (Yuco, Yucpa, Yuko, Yupa) is a Cariban language, spoken by 3,000 people in Zulia State in Venezuela and 3,000 across the border in Colombia.^[1] It's also known as Carib Motilón, Macoíta, Northern Motilón, Manso.

Río Casacará (Iroka) and Río Maracas are the main dialects, and different enough to possibly be considered separate languages. Also Caño Padilla–La Laguna. The Venezuelan dialects, Yrapa and Río Negro, are closer to Río Maracas than to Río Casacará.

Similarity to Japrería, the other Yupka language, is slight.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
	Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	plain	lab.
Stop	p	t̪				k	kʷ
Affricate			tʃ	tʂ
Fricative		s̪	(ʃ)	ʂ
Nasal	m	n̪
Rhotic		ɾ		(ɽ)
Approximant	w				j

Sounds /p, m/ can become velarized as [pˠ, mˠ] when before vowels /e, a/.
/j/ can have an allophone of [ʐ] in free variation, and [ç] when before consonants.
A retroflex [ɽ] may also occur simultaneously in the place of /tʂ/ or /ʂ/ in the Sokorpa dialect.
In the La Paz and Menkwe dialects, retroflex consonants do not occur, so /ʂ/ is heard as [ʃ] in both dialects, and /tʂ/ is heard as either [x] in the La Paz dialect, and [ts] in the Menkwe dialect.
Nasal sounds /m, n/ become voiceless [m̥, n̥] when preceding voiceless stops.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	e ~ ɪ		ɯ	u
Mid	e ~ ɪ		o
Low		a

/e/ ranges between sounds [ɪ, e] across dialects.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Yukpa at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ Largo, Wilson (2011). Una Gramática del Yukpa Colombia (PDF) (in Spanish). Fundación Para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Marginados (FDPM).

External links

Meira, Sérgio (October 27, 2005). Primeras observaciones sobre la lengua yukpa [First Observations on the Yukpa Language] (PDF). Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (Report) (in Spanish). University of Texas. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 8, 2022.

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[e25-1] Yukpa at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] Largo, Wilson (2011). Una Gramática del Yukpa Colombia (PDF) (in Spanish). Fundación Para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Marginados (FDPM).

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