Enawene Nawe (Enawené-Nawé, Enawenê-Nawê, Eneuene-Mare), also known as , is an Arawakan language of Brazil spoken by about 570 people living in the Juruena River basin area, and more specifically along the Iquê river in the state of Mato Grosso.
Classification
Aikhenvald (1999) classifies Enawene Nawe as a South Arawak language together with Terena, Lapachu and Moxo. However, more recent works by both Fabre (2005) and Brandão & Facundes (2007) consider the language to form a subgroup with Paresi in the Paresi–Xingu branch of Arawakan languages.
Comparison of personal pronouns between Paresi and Enawene Nawe Person Paresi Enawene Nawe natyo nato hitso hixo eze ere witso wixo xitso dexo ezenae erenaha
Comparison of numbers Number Paresi Enawene Nawe one hatita xoxola two hinama initini three hanama koytala four zalakakoa noxi
Comparison of other vocabulary Word Paresi Enawene Nawe to fall ezoa edoa itch mare, mali wera drink era, tera wesera corn kozeto korito eye zotse edose house hati, hana hakolo vulture oloho olohõ night maka mikya stone tsehali sairi uncle koko kokore sour katyala katala basket koho tohe bathe koaha nakohã arrive kaoka takwa
Phonology
Consonants
Enawene Nawe is described by Zorthêa (2006) as having 15 contrastive consonants.
+ Consonant inventoryLabialAlveolarPost-alv./PalatalVelarGlottalPlosive Nasal Flap Fricative Approximant
Among these, the following allophonic variations are reported:
+ Consonant variations Type Examples varies between and in word-initial position before the front vowels and varies between and varies between , , and varies between and varies between and between vowels "I think": varies between and between vowels varies between and between vowels
Vowels
Enawene Nawe is described by Zorthêa (2006) as having 4 oral vowels and 4 nasal vowels.
+ Oral Front Back Near-Close ~ Mid ~ Open
+ Nasal Front Back Near-Close ~ Mid ~ Open
Grammar
Pronouns
Independent personal pronounsPersonSingularPlural1stnatowixo2ndhixodexo3rdereerenaha
Numerals The first eleven numbers in Enawene Nawe are as follows:
Number Enawene Nawe 1 xoxola 2 initini 3 koytala 4 noxi 5 monarese, eswe 6 lolokwate 7 lolate 8 hoxiro 9 mamalakari 10 ketera 11 darayti
Zorthêa (2006) notes that all numbers except initini (2) and monarese (5) can be preceded and followed by affixes.
Affixes Enawene Nawe makes use of a variety of suffixes and prefixes to derive different meanings from root words.
Gender suffixes Zorthêa (2006) describes Enawene Nawe as having two suffixes to explicitly mark gender: -lo for the feminine gender and -re for the masculine. De Almeida (2015), however, notes four suffixes: -nero and -lo mark the feminine gender, while -nere and -li mark the masculine.
Examples from de Almeida (2015):
Towalinero "a Towali woman" Towalinere "a Towali man" Iyakaloti "a female spirit" Iyakaliti "a male spirit"
Place suffix The suffix -kwa is used to mark places and is commonly found in village names. For example, the name of the Enawene Nawe village Matokodakwa is ultimately derived from matokoda, meaning "container for transporting liquids", and -kwa "place".
References