Cahuapanan languages

Cahuapana (also Kahuapana, Kawapana, Jebero, Xebero ) is a small indigenous language family of South America with only two individual languages ​​, which are spoken in northern Peru from about 9,000 people:

  • Chayahuita [ cbt ] (also: Canpo Piyapi, Tshaawi 7,000 speakers), Dialects: Chayahuita, Cahuapana †
  • Jebero [ jeb ] (also: Xebero, Xihuila; 2,000 speakers)

( Numbers of speakers by Wise 1999)

Linguistic situation

The Cahuapana dialect of Chayahuita - after the speech unit was named - is extinct. Of the Chayahuita - speakers dominate 30 % and Spanish, the children grow up with Chayahuita on; Jebero is spoken only by the elderly and no longer passed on to the offspring ( Wise 1999).

Linguistic relationship

Cahuapana has no close relatives of current knowledge. By Joseph Greenberg (1987 ) it was inserted into the Andean branch of the Ameri -Indian. Campbell ( 1997) remarks that this thesis is hardly supported by the submitted material. Kaufman (1990 ) provides a possible link of the Cahuapana to the Jivaro languages ​​that would supported by some lexical data. Wise (1999) rejects a closer relationship of Cahuapana with the Jivaro.

Linguistic characteristics

The Cahuapana languages ​​are accusative languages ​​with the basic word order of subject-object - verb ( SOV ).

Nominative–accusative language
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