Nambikwaran languages

The Nambikwara languages ​​(also:. Nambikuara, Nambiquara; engl Nambiquaran ) belong to the indigenous languages ​​of South America. They are spoken by the people living in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso in the Amazon region of Brazil Nambikwara.

The language family consists of only three languages ​​with very few speakers ( in square brackets, the ISO 639-3 code is specified):

  • North Nambikwara [ mbg ] (also Mamaindê; approximately 136 speakers)
  • South Nambikwara [ nab ] (approx. 1,150 speakers)
  • Sabanê [ sae ] ( 60 speakers)

Linguistic characteristics

In the phonetic system fall on nasal vowels, aspirated consonants and vowels laryngalisierte. The Nambikwara languages ​​are also tonal languages ​​with 3-4 contour tones:

  • Decreasing
  • Increasing
  • Just
  • Deep (only in North Nambikwara )

There exists a system of Nominalklassifikatoren.

The basic word order is subject-object - verb ( SOV ).

Swell

  • Helmut Glück ( ed.): Metzler Lexikon Sprache. Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 1993.
Amazon Basin Nambikwara people Linguistic typology
591472
de