Yanomaman, also as Yanomam, Yanomáman, Yamomámi, and Yanomamana (also Shamatari, Shirianan), is a family of languages spoken by about 20,000 Yanomami people in southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil (Roraima, Amazonas).
Subdivision
Ferreira et al. (2019) Ferreira, Machado & Senra (2019) divide the Yanomaman family into two branches, with six languages in total.
Yanomaman Ninam-Yanomam-Yaroamë Nimam Ninam (also known as Yanami, Yanami-Ninami) - 900 speakers in Venezuela and Brazil Yanomam-Yaroamë Yanomám (also known as Waiká) - 6,000 speakers mainly in Brazil Yanomamö (also known as Yanomame, Yanomami) - 20,000 speakers mainly in Venezuela Yaroamë (also known as Jawari) - 400 speakers in Brazil Yãnoma - 178 speakers in Brazil Sanumá Sanumá (also known as Tsanuma, Sanima) - 5,100 speakers mainly in Venezuela
Sanumá is the most lexically distinct. Yanomamö has the most speakers (20,000), while Yãnoma has the fewest (178).
Jolkesky (2016) Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):
(† = extinct)
Yanomami Sanuma Yanam Yanomami, Central Yaroame Yanomam, Yanomamï
Genetic relations Yanomaman is usually not connected with any other language family. Joseph Greenberg has suggested a relationship between Yanomaman and Macro-Chibchan. Migliazza (1985) has suggested a connection with Panoan and Chibchan. Neither proposal is widely accepted.
Language contact Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Irantxe, Taruma, Katukina-Katawixi, Puinave-Kak, Tupi, Arawa, Guahibo, and Jivaro language families due to contact.
Name Yanomami is not what the Yanomami call themselves and is instead a word in their language meaning "man" or "human being". The American anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon adopted this term with the transcription Ya̧nomamö to use as an exonym to refer to the culture and, by extension, the people. The word is pronounced with nasalisation of all the vowels. As the phoneme indicated by the spelling 'ö' does not occur in English, variations in spelling and pronunciation of the name have developed, with Yanomami, Yanomamö, Ya̧nomamö or Ya̦nomamö, and Yanomama all being used. Some anthropologists have used the spelling Yanomamɨ to indicate the vowel , but because many presses and typesetters eliminate the diacritical marks, the pronunciation /i/ and spelling of the name with ⟨i⟩ has emerged.
Characteristics
Phonology Yanomaman languages have a phonological distinction between oral and nasal vowels. There are seven basic vowel qualities: /a e i o u ɨ ə/, which can occur as oral or nasal sounds.
+Yanomaman vowels Front Central BackOral NasalOral NasalOral Nasal Close or Mid Open
In the table above, the practical orthography is shown in angle brackets below the phoneme, if different.
The Yanomaman languages present extensive nasal harmony. When in Yanomaman words, a vowel is phonetically nasalized, all vowels that follow within the same word are also nasalized. The consonants of Yanomama are shown in the table below: LabialAlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalStop FricativeApproximant
Syntax Yanomaman languages are SOV, suffixing, predominantly head-marking with elements of dependent-marking. Its typology is highly polysynthetic. Adjectival concepts are expressed using stative verbs, there are no true adjectives. Adjectival stative verbs follow their noun.
There are five demonstratives which have to be chosen according to distance from speaker and hearer and also according to visibility, a feature shared by many native Brazilian languages such as Tupian ones including Old Tupi. Demonstratives, numerals, classifiers and quantifiers precede the head noun.
There is a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession, again a common areal feature, and a rich system of verbal classifiers, almost a hundred, they are obligatory and appear just before the verb root. The distinction between inclusive and exclusive 1st person plural, a feature shared by most Native American languages, has been lost in Yanam and Yanomam dialects, but retained in the others.
Yanomami morphosyntactic alignment is ergative–absolutive, which means that the subject of an intransitive verb is marked the same way as the object of a transitive verb, while the subject of a transitive verb is marked differently. The ergative case marker is -ny. The verb agrees with both the subject and object.
Evidentiality in the Yanomami dialect is marked on the verb and has four levels: eyewitness, deduced, reported, and assumed. Other dialects have fewer levels.
The object of the verb can be incorporated into it, especially if it is not in focus:
Non-incorporated:
Incorporated:
Relative clauses are formed by adding a relativizing ('REL' below) suffix to the verb:
Sanuma dialect also has a relative pronoun ĩ.
References
Bibliography
.
Dictionaries Müller, Marie-Claude Mattei. (2007) Diccionario ilustrado yanomami-español / español-yanomami. Caracas: Epsilon Libros. 782pp.
External links
ELAR archive of Documentation and Description of the Yanomama of Papiu The Yanomami Language Yanomámi (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)