Fulniô language

Fulniô, or Yatê, is a language isolate of Brazil, and the only indigenous language remaining in the northeastern part of that country. The two dialects, Fulniô and Yatê, are very close. The Fulniô dialect is used primarily during a three-month religious retreat. Today, the language is spoken in Águas Belas, Pernambuco.^[2]

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Portuguese. (April 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the Portuguese article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 638 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Língua yatê]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|pt|Língua yatê}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Yatê-Fulniô, Native to ...

Yatê-Fulniô
Carnijó
Yaa:thê
Native to	Brazil
Region	Águas Belas, Pernambuco
Ethnicity	Fulni-ô [pt]
Native speakers	1,000 (2011)^[1]
Language family	Language isolate (Macro-Jê?) Yatê-Fulniô
Dialects	Fulniô Yatê
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`fun`
Glottolog	`fuln1247`
ELP	Yaté

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The language is also called Carnijó, and alternate spellings are Fornió, Furniô, Yahthe, and Iatê.

Classification

Kaufman (1990) classified Fulniô as one of the Macro-Gê languages. However, Eduardo Ribeiro of the University of Chicago, who is working on large-scale classification of Brazilian languages, finds no evidence to support this, and treats it as an isolate. Jolkesky (2016) again has it as Macro-Je, but Nikulin (2020) again excludes it.

Phonology

Summarize

Perspective

Fulniô has the following sounds:

Consonants

More information Labial, Alveolar ...

	Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	plain	p	t d			k
aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
Affricate	plain		ts	tʃ dʒ
aspirated		tsʰ	tʃʰ
Fricative	f	s z	ʃ			h
Approximate		l		j	w

/pʰ/ is rare.

A glottal stop [ʔ] occurs, but is considered epenthetic.

/n/ can be heard as a velar nasal [ŋ] before a velar stop.

/l/ can be heard as a palatal lateral [ʎ] before a post-alveolar affricate, and can be heard as an alveolar lateral flap [ɺ] when following fricatives, nasals or stops.

Vowels

Fulniô has 8 vowels.

More information Front, Central ...

	Front	Central	Back
Closed	i		u
Near-close	ɪ
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid			ɔ
Open	æ	a

/a/ can be heard as a nasalized sound [ə̃] when preceding a nasal consonant in closed syllables, or word-finally after a nasal consonant.

There are few contrasts between /o/ and /u/, suggesting /u/ is a recent addition, perhaps from Portuguese.

All seven have nasalized and glottalized allophones, depending on adjacent consonants. Vowels occur long and short. However, long vowels result from assimilation of /h/, are pronounced [Vh] in one dialect, and so are analyzed as /Vh/ sequences.

Tones are high and low. Contour tones occur allophonically adjacent to voiced consonants. Final syllables tend to lack a tone contrast, and final vowels may be devoiced or dropped.

There are no vowel sequences; vowels either coalesce or are separated by a glottal stop. Consonant clusters are limited to two consonants, apart from a possible additional /j w/, with the maximum syllable being CCCVC; reduced vowels between consonants are analyzed as /j w/ by Meland & Meland: /tfàltʰùlkja/ 'crossing over', /kwlèlja/ 'rotten'.

Remove ads

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968)

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.^[3]

More information gloss, Fulnio ...

gloss	Fulnio
head	i-tká
eye	itó
tooth	dzyashi
foot	ishiri
water	oya
fire	toːwẽ
star	tiúyá
maize	malchi
jaguar	kléken
black	chichiá

Nikulin (2020)

Some Yaathê words given by Nikulin (2020),^[4]^: 69–70 cited from Lapenda (1965,^[5] 2005 [1968]^[6]), Barbosa (1991),^[7] Costa (1999),^[8] F. Silva (2011a,^[9] 2011b^[10]), and Branner (1887).^[11]

More information Portuguese gloss (original), English gloss (translated) ...

Portuguese gloss (original)	English gloss (translated)	Yaathê
cinza	ashes	fêlôwa
pé	foot	fêhê
folha	leaf	ta(-)cʰa
fígado	liver	ta(-)cô
dente	tooth	ta(-)xi
cabelo	hair	li
água	water	ôːja
língua	tongue	kts(ʰ)ale
boca	mouth	ta(-)tʰê
nariz	nose	kʰletʰa
olho	eye	tʰô
orelha	ear	kfakê
cabeça	head	tkʰa
fogo	fire	tôwê
árvore	tree	cʰleka
semente	seed	kêtʰôja
ouvir	hear	kfala-
dormir	sleep	kfafa-
terra	earth	fê(j)ʔa
piolho	louse	cfôwa
pedra	stone	fô(ʔ)a
chuva	rain	flicja
mão	hand	koho ~ kʰoja (?)
caminho	road	tdi
dar	give	kô-
estar sentado	be seated	kine-
estar deitado	lying down	kʰa-
ir	go	o-, no-
rabo	tail	ta(-)tô
carne	meat	ucʰi ~ utxi
nome	name	ketkʲa
unha	nail (finger)	kʰôtkʲa