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Classification

Some have tentatively associated the Ticuna language within the proposals of the macro-arawakano or with macro-tukano stocks, although these classifications are highly speculative given the lack of evidence. A more recent hypothesis has linked Yuri-Ticuna with the Saliban and Hoti languages in the Duho stock.⁴ However, the linguistic consensus is that Ticuna may actually be considered a language isolate in its present-day situation, since Yuri is extinct.

Sociolinguistic situation

Brazil

Ticuna is the Indigenous language most widely spoken in Brazil.⁵

Despite being home to more than 50% of the Ticunas, Brazil has only recently started to invest in native language education. Brazilian Ticunas now have a written literature and an education provided by the Brazilian National Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI) and the Ministry of Education. Textbooks in Ticuna are used by native teachers trained in both Portuguese and Ticuna to teach the language to the children. A large-scale project has been recording traditional narrations and writing them down to provide the literate Ticunas with some literature to practice with.

Ticuna education is not a privilege, but part of a wider project carried on by the Brazilian government to provide all significant minorities with education in their own language.

In 2012, the Brazilian government launched an educational campaign for the prevention of AIDS and violence against women, the first such campaign in Brazil ever conducted in an indigenous language.⁶

Peru

Ticunas in Peru have had native language education at least since the 1960s. They use a writing system that was, apparently, the base for the development of the Brazilian one. However, much of the literature available to Peruvian Ticunas comprise standard textbooks.

Colombia

Colombian Ticunas are taught in Spanish, when they have access to school at all. Since the establishment of Ticuna schools in Brazil some have ventured to attend them.

Christian Ministries

A number of Christian ministries have reached the Ticuna people. These ministries have translated the Bible into the native Ticuna language and even have a weekday radio show that is broadcast in Ticuna, Portuguese, and Spanish by the Latin American Ministries (LAM).⁷

Literacy

Besides its use at the Ticuna schools, the language has a dozen books published every year, both in Brazil and Peru. Those books employ a specially devised phonetic writing system using conventions similar to those found in Portuguese (except for K instead of C and the letter Ñ instead of NH) instead of the more complex scientific notation found, for instance, at the Language Museum.

In school Ticuna is taught formally. Children in schools typically in areas of Catholic Missionaries are also taught either Portuguese or Spanish as well.⁸

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels qualities are /a e i ɨ u o/. Vowels may be nasalized and/or show creaky voice, under which tones are lowered.⁹ There are diphthongs /ai̯/ and /au̯/ that carry a single tone, contrasting with vowel sequences /ai/ and /au/ that carry two tones.

The six vowels may be nasal or laryngealized. The sixth vowel is spelled ü.

Tones

Ticuna is an unusually tonal language for South America, with over 10 mostly contour tones. Ticuna has one of the largest tone inventories in the world with 8–12 phonemic tones depending on the dialect. Tones are only indicated orthographically, with diacritics, when confusion is likely.

Research has indicated isolated tonal languages with complex tones are more likely to occur in regions of higher humidity and higher mean average temperature because it is believed the vocal folds can produce less consistent tones in colder, drier air. Ticuna was one of the languages of focus in this study due to its prevalence—and complexity—of tones.¹⁰

Consonants

The consonants of Ticuna consist of the following phonemes:¹¹

Natively, Ticuna has no lateral or uvular consonants,¹² although /l/ is found in some Spanish loanwords.

The affricate /dʒ/ (spelled "y") may be pronounced as /ɟ/,¹³ and also /j/, but only before the vowel /a/. A central /ɨ/ vowel sound may also be pronounced as a back [ɯ] sound. Other sounds, /f s x l/ are found in Spanish loans.

Consonants may also be glottalized. Glottal stop is spelled x.

Orthography

The letters of the Ticuna alphabet are as follows:

Letters f, j, k, l, s, v, z are used in Spanish loanwords.

Nasalization is indicated with a tilde, and laryngeal vowels with a macron below.¹⁴

Morphology

Ticuna is a fairly isolating language morphologically, meaning that most words consist of just one morpheme. However, Ticuna words usually have more than one syllable, unlike isolating languages such as Vietnamese. Typologically, Ticuna word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), though unusually this can vary within the language.

Syntax

Ticuna displays nominative/accusative alignment, with person, number, noun class, and clause type indexed on the verb via proclitics. Transitive and unergative verbs tend to favor an Subject-(Object)-Verb word order, while unaccusative verbs show a preference for Verb-Subject word order.¹⁵

Vocabulary

¹⁶

The counting words in Ticuna imply a base five system of counting as the word for five is the combination of "one five". Six through nine all contain the same beginning "naixmixwa rü" and then append the values for one through four respectively (such that six is "naixmixwa rü" and "wüxi" meaning one).¹⁷

Examples of spoken language

An example of spoken Ticuna can be found here.¹⁸

Vocabulary (Loukotka 1968)

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.²⁰

External links

• "Conversational Tikuna" – Ticuna course and grammar at the Summer Institute of Linguistics
• Ticuna publications for download
• OLAC resources in and about the Ticuna language
• Ticuna (tca) language documentation: A guide to materials in the California Language Archive (Skilton 2021)

References

1. "Size and vitality of Ticuna". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2022-11-28. https://www.ethnologue.com/size-and-vitality/tca ↩

2. "Linking Isolated Languages: Linguistic Relationships of the Carabayo". 28 April 2014. http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2014/04/28/linking-isolated-languages-linguistic-relationships-carabayo/ ↩

3. Seifart, Frank; Echeverri, Juan Alvaro (2014-04-16). "Evidence for the Identification of Carabayo, the Language of an Uncontacted People of the Colombian Amazon, as Belonging to the Tikuna-Yurí Linguistic Family". PLOS ONE. 9 (4): e94814. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...994814S. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0094814. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3989239. PMID 24739948. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3989239 ↩

4. Jolkesky, Marcelo (2016), "Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas.", Title in English: An Archaeo-Ecolinguistic Study of the South American Tropics. The Downloadable Version (1.2) is the 2nd Update of My Original PhD Dissertation (Original Version: February 2016; 2nd Update Publication Date: October 2017), Brasilia: UnB. PhD Dissertation. https://www.academia.edu/27105400 ↩

5. Skilton, Amalia (2021). "Ticuna (tca) language documentation: A guide to materials in the California Language Archive". Language Documentation & Conservation. 15: 153–189. hdl:10125/24972. ISSN 1934-5275. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24972 ↩

6. Associated Press (2012-10-11). "Brazilian government uses indigenous language for the first time in anti-AIDS campaign". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 5, 2022. Retrieved 2012-10-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20220705201616/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazilian-government-uses-indigenous-language-for-the-first-time-in-anti-aids-campaign/2012/10/11/e756f500-13ed-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html ↩

7. "Latin American Ministries – Project Ticuna". http://www.latinamericanministries.net/ticuna/ucb-lam ↩

8. "Ticuna Indigenous Trive in Brazil and Colombia". Archived from the original on 2017-07-30. Retrieved 2017-07-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20170730065656/https://xapiri.com/pages/ticuna ↩

9. Anderson, Doris, Conversational Ticuna, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1962 ↩

10. Everett, Caleb; et al. (February 3, 2015). "Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112 (5): 1322–7. Bibcode:2015PNAS..112.1322E. doi:10.1073/pnas.1417413112. PMC 4321236. PMID 25605876. S2CID 1678719. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4321236 ↩

11. Anderson, Doris, Conversational Ticuna, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1962 ↩

12. Anderson, Doris, Conversational Ticuna, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1962 ↩

13. Montes Rodríguez, María Emilia (2004). Lengua ticuna: resultados de fonología y sintaxis. ↩

14. "Diccionario ticuna – castellano" (PDF). www.sil.org. https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/90/20/51/90205190508691852389084667097660892450/tca_Ticuna_Dictionary_2016_web.pdf ↩

15. Skilton, Amalia (2021). "Ticuna (tca) language documentation: A guide to materials in the California Language Archive". Language Documentation & Conservation. 15: 153–189. hdl:10125/24972. ISSN 1934-5275. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24972 ↩

16. "Vocabularin in Native American Languages: Ticuna Words". Native Languages. http://www.native-languages.org/ticuna_words.htm ↩

17. "Vocabularin in Native American Languages: Ticuna Words". Native Languages. http://www.native-languages.org/ticuna_words.htm ↩

18. "Global Recordings – Ticuna Language". http://globalrecordings.net/en/language/1675 ↩

19. "Greetings in more than 3000 languages". http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/Greetings%20T.htm#Ticuna ↩

20. Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center. /wiki/%C4%8Cestm%C3%ADr_Loukotka ↩