Guayabero language

Guayabero is a Guahiban language that is spoken by a thousand people in Colombia. Many of its speakers are monoglots, with few fluent Spanish speakers in the population.

Guayabero
Jiw
Native to	Colombia
Region	Upper Guaviaré River
Ethnicity	1,120 (2011)[1]
Native speakers	1,000 (2008)[1]
Language family	Guajiboan Southwest Guayabero
Language codes
ISO 639-3	guo
Glottolog	guay1257
ELP	Guayabero

Phonology

The Guayabero syllable structure can be represented as CV(V)(C)(C). Each syllable has an obligatory single consonant onset and a nucleus of one or two vowels. An optional coda of at most two consonants can occur in both word-medial and final positions.^[2]

Consonants^[2][3]

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d
Affricate				t͡ʃ
Fricative		ɸ	s		x	h
Nasal		m	n
Approximant		w	l	j
Flap			ɾ

• /w/ is heard as labiodental [ʋ] when preceding front vowel sounds.
• /d/ can be heard as fricatives in syllable-final positions. As a voiced dental [ð] when after front vowels, and as a voiceless [θ] when after back vowels in syllable-final positions.
• /n/ is heard as [ɲ] when following front vowels and as [ŋ] when preceding velar /k/.
• /b/ is heard as preglottal [ˀb] in accented syllable-initial positions and as [β] in intervocalic positions.
• /s/ is also heard as postalveolar [ʃ] in syllable-final position in free variation.
• /x/ is heard as uvular [χ] in accented syllables.
• /j/ is heard as a stop [ɟ] in accented syllable-initial positions.

Vowels^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low	æ	a

• Vowels /i, e, ɨ, a, o, u/ are heard in unstressed position as [ɪ, ɛ, ɨ̞, ʌ, ɔ, ʊ].