Harákmbut language

Harakmbut or Harakmbet (stress on the second syllable) is the native language of the Harakmbut people of Peru. It is spoken along the Madre de Dios and Colorado Rivers, in the pre-contact country of the people. There are two dialects that remain vital: Amarakaeri (Arakmbut) and Watipaeri (Huachipaeri), which are reported to be mutually intelligible. The relationship between speakers of the two dialects is hostile.

As of 2012, Amarakaeri is still being learned by children in some communities. There 5% literacy compared to 75% literacy in the second language Spanish. They live in the communities of Puerto Luz, Shintuya, San José Del Karene, Barranco Chico, Boca Inambari, Boca Ishiriwe, Puerto Azul, Masenawa and Kotsimba. The name Amarakaeri, from wa-mba-arak-a-eri "murderers", is considered derogatory; the endonym Arakmbut is preferred.

Speakers of Watipaeri (wa-tipa-eri) are mostly concentrated in the indigenous communities of Queros and Santa Rosa de Huacaria, in the Peruvian rainforest. Their members have been experiencing cultural loss, including the complexities of their language, particularly because of the generational gap between the elders and the youth.

Varieties
Dialects are:


 * Amarakaeri (autonym: Arakmbut), the most widely spoken dialect, is spoken in the indigenous communities of Puerto Luz, Shintuya, San José Del Karene, Barranco Chico, Boca Inambari, Boca Ishiriwe, Puerto Azul, Masenawa, and Kotsimba. There is an ethnic population of 1043 as 2007.
 * Watipaeri, with an ethnic population of 392 in Queros and Santa Rosa de Huacaria
 * Arasaeri has an ethnic population of 317 in Arazaeri (arãsã-eri, people of the Marcatapa River; spoken in Arazaeri)
 * Pukirieri has an ethnic population of 168 (pukiri-eri, people of the Pukiri River)
 * Sapiteri and Kisambaeri (ethnic population of 47, in Barranco Chico)
 * Toyoeri: extinct (toyo(dn)-eri, people downriver)

There are at most only a handful of fluent speakers remaining for any of these dialects.

The genetic position of Toyoeri is disputed. Some researchers have divided the dialects into two main groups, with Watipaeri and Toyoeri phonetically and lexically somewhat different from Amarakaeri/Arakmbut, Arasaeri and Sapiteri. Data from Aza (1936) and Peck (1958), however, suggest that Arakmbut is different from the other four, which are similar to each other.

Classification
Harakmbut has been accepted as a language isolate since the 1960s. Adelaar (2000, 2007) presents mainly lexical evidence that it is related to the Katukinan family of Brazil; influence from Tupian languages also suggest an origin in Brazil. Campbell (2012) accepted the evidence as "reasonably persuasive". Jolkesky (2011) concurs, and adds Arawan to the family. Glottolog notes "promising lexical links with Katukina [...] with a fair amount of near-identical forms, but the systems of pronouns, numerals or bound morphology show no cognation.''

Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Pano, Puinave-Nadahup, Tupian, and Arawakan language families due to contact.

Similarities with Tupian may be indicative of an earlier origin downstream in the Madeira River interaction sphere.

Phonology
The following inventory is that of Amarakaeri, the most vital dialect. Other dialects appear to only differ in the presence of /h/ or the lack of /w/.

Amarakaeri has ten vowels:

When adjacent to /a/, /e/ tends to rise to /i/ or /j/. This can cause palatalization of a preceding consonant, e.g. kate-apo 'why?' as  or. Similarly, /o/ tends to rise to /u/ or /w/ when adjacent to /a/ or /e/, e.g. ĩ-nõ-põ-ẽ-ỹ 'I know' as.

Consonants are as follows:

The phonemic status of and  is not clear. They vary between dialects, but also between speakers and even with the same speaker in Arakmbut. They may be epenthetic consonants used to demarcate syllables that do not have an onset or coda consonant.

/t k n s/ occur in syllable codas, and /ŋ/ only in syllable codas.

Stops tend toward in intervocalic position. (In Toyoeri and Sapiteri, this has only been reported for /k/.) Among younger people, and often among their elders, the alveolars /t n/ palatalize to and  (or ) before /i, ĩ/; /s/ palatalizes to  before /i, ĩ/ and /u, ũ/. (In Toyoeri and Sapiteri, this has only been reported for /t/.)

The nasal consonants have different realizations, depending on whether adjacent vowels are oral or nasal, with /m/ and /n/ affected before an oral vowel, and /n/ and /ŋ/ affected after one:
 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! !! V_ !! Ṽ_ !! _V !! _Ṽ !m !n !ŋ This allophonic variation is reflected in the community orthography, and the same pattern has been reported for Watipaeri, Arasaeri, Toyoeri and Sapiteri.
 * +Nasal allophones
 * m||m||mb||m
 * dn||n||nd||n
 * ɡŋ||ŋ||colspan=2| &mdash;
 * }

The nature of Harakmbut nasality has yet to be fully elucidated, and in Amarakaeri at least there is some free variation of allophones. For instance, 'five' has been attested as both and. Nonetheless, there is a phonemic distinction of vowel nasalization after nasal consonants, as in the proper name.

Stress is on the penultimate syllable, not counting inflectional suffixes, which do not change stress placement in a word.

Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Toyeri (also spelled in other sources as Toyoeri), a variety of Harákmbut.


 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! gloss !! Toyeri
 * one || unchinda
 * two || botta
 * three || baʔpa
 * tooth || ua-ít
 * tongue || ua-no
 * hand || ua-mba
 * woman || uaxet
 * water || meei
 * fire || táʔak
 * moon || pöxen
 * maize || sinke
 * jaguar || apane
 * house || xahak
 * }
 * water || meei
 * fire || táʔak
 * moon || pöxen
 * maize || sinke
 * jaguar || apane
 * house || xahak
 * }
 * maize || sinke
 * jaguar || apane
 * house || xahak
 * }
 * house || xahak
 * }