Nanti is an Arawakan language spoken by approximately 250 people in southeastern Peruvian Amazonia, principally in a number of small communities located near the headwaters of the Camisea and Timpía Rivers. It belongs to the Kampan branch of the Arawak family, and is most closely related to Matsigenka, with which it is partially mutually intelligible.
The language is also sometimes called Kogapakori (variants: Cogapacori, Kugapakori), a pejorative term of Matsigenka origin meaning 'violent person'.Michael, Lev and Christine Beier. 2007. Una breve historia del pueblo Nanti hasta el año 2004. Online version: http://www.cabeceras.org/cabeceras_nanti_histor_2004.pdf
Classification Nanti is a member of the Arawakan language family, specifically in the Kampa branch. Despite the fact that the Kampa languages' internal classification is unclear, six language varieties are distinguished; Nanti, Asháninka, Ashéninka, Kakinte, Matsigenka, and Nomatsiguenga.
Phonology Consonants The phonemic inventory of Nanti is typical of the Kampa languages and of the Arawakan family as a whole, although there are some differences. Nanti's system of allophony is a distinguishing feature of the language. LabialAlveolarAlveo-palatalVelarGlottalUnspecifiedStopvoiceless voiced Affricate Fricative Flap Nasal NGlide
Nanti exhibits a lack of symmetry in the stop series; while there is a voiceless , there is no equivalent voiced . This asymmetry is common among the Kampa languages.
Vowels Nanti has a vowel inventory typical for the Arawakan languages except for the diphthong , which Michael argues is monomoraic. FrontCentralBackHigh ɯi̯Mid Low
Stress Nanti stress is based on the sonority or prominence of a syllable nucleus, rather than on position, which is typologically very unusual.
Typology Typologically, Nanti is a "highly" polysynthetic language and exhibits agglutinativity. Its verbal morphology is extremely complicated; in particular, its applicative suffixing system "has been described as one of the most complex of any human language", though the other word classes have much simpler morphology.
References
Bibliography
External links Nanti Collection of Christine Beier and Lev Michael at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Contains four recordings of ceremonies in Nanti with transcriptions and translations.