| Guahibo | |
|---|---|
| Jiwi | |
| Native to | Colombia, Venezuela |
| Region | Casanare, eastern Meta, Vichada, Guaviare, Guainia states (Colombia) Orinoco River (Venezuela) |
Native speakers | (34,000 cited 1998–2001)[1] |
Guahiban
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:guh – Guahibogob – Playero (Pepojivi) |
| Glottolog | guah1254 |
| ELP | Guajibo |
| Playero[2] | |
 | |
Guahibo, the native language of the Guahibo people, is a Guahiban language that is spoken by about 23,006 people in Colombia and additional 8,428 in Venezuela. There is a 40% rate of monolingualism, and a 45% literacy rate.
Guahibo has a unique and complex stress system with both primary and secondary stress. The stress system shows a sensitivity to syllable weight so that heavy syllables are always stressed. Both contrasting trochaic and iambic patterns are found on morphemes in nonfinal morphemes with more than two syllables:
| Trochaic | Iambic |
|---|---|
| ('LL)('LL) mátacàbi "day" |
(L'L)(L'L) tulíquisì "bead necklace" |
The binary feet are parsed from left to right within each morpheme. Morphemes with an odd number of syllables leave the final syllable unstressed (and unparsed into feet):
| Trochaic | Iambic |
|---|---|
| ('LL)L wánali "crystal" |
(L'L)L wayáfo "savannah" |
| ('LL)('LL)L pàlupáluma "rabbit" |
(L'L)(L'L)L culèmayúwa "species of turtle" |
Morphemes that consist of two syllables and are also word-final are an exception to the above and only have the trochaic pattern:
| Trochaic | Iambic (with reversal) |
|---|---|
| ('LL) náwa "grass fire" |
('LL) púca "lake" |
These morphemes alternate with an iambic pattern when placed in a nonfinal context. Thus náwa keeps its trochaic pattern with the addition of a single light syllable morpheme like -ta "in":
However, an iambic word show its underlying iamb when it is followed by -ta:
Affixation generally does not affect the stress pattern of each morpheme.
Heavy syllables since they are required to be stressed disrupt perfect trochaic and iambic rhythms. However, morphemes with a sequence of at least two light syllables show contrasting stress patterns:
| Trochaic | Iambic |
|---|---|
| ('LL)('H) nónojì "hot peppers" |
(L'L)('H) jútabài "motmot" |
Primary Stress. Primary stress generally falls on the rightmost nonfinal foot. For example, the following word
has primary stress on the rightmost foot (pa.lu) which is not word-final. However, the rightmost foot (qui.si) in
is word-final and cannot receive primary stress; the primary stress then falls on the next rightmost foot (tu.li). Placing a light syllable suffix -ta "with" after a four syllable root shows shifting of primary stress:
With the addition of the suffix, the root-final foot (ni.lu) is no longer word-final and is subsequently permitted to accept primary stress.
| Uppercase | A | B | C | D | E | Ë | F | I | J | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | Th | Ts | U | W | X | Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowercase | a | b | c | d | e | ë | f | i | j | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | th | ts | u | w | x | y |
| a | b | d | e | f | i | j | j̈ (x) | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | tj | ts | u | ü | w | y |
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | plain | p ⟨p⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ||
| aspirated | tʰ ⟨tj⟩ | |||||
| voiced | b ⟨b⟩ | d ⟨d⟩ | ||||
| Fricative | ɸ ⟨f⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | x ⟨j̈/x⟩ | h ⟨j⟩ | ||
| Trill | r ⟨r⟩ | |||||
| Affricate | t͡s ⟨ts⟩ | |||||
| Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ||||
| Lateral | l ⟨l⟩ | |||||
| Approximant | w~β ⟨w⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ | ||||
A /w/ sound can also range to a [β] sound within words.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ⟨i⟩ | ɨ ⟨ü/ë⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ |
| Mid | e ⟨e⟩ | o ⟨o⟩ | |
| Open | a ⟨a⟩ |
Sounds /a, e/ can have allophones of [ə, ɛ]. Vowels can also be nasalized as /ã, ĩ, ẽ, õ, ũ, ɨ̃/.[5]