Irantxe language
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| Irantxe | |
|---|---|
| Irantxe-Myky | |
| Manoki, Myky | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Mato Grosso |
| Ethnicity | 280 Irantxe and 80 Munku (2012)[1] |
Native speakers | 90, including 10 Irantxe proper (2012)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin (Myky) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | irn |
| Glottolog | iran1263 |
| ELP | Irantxe |
Iranxe is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
Irantxe (Irantxe, Iranxe, Iranshe) /i'ra:ntSeI/, also known as Myky (Munku) or still as Irantxe-Munku, is an indigenous language spoken by the Irantxe (Iranxe, Iranche, Manoki, Munku) and Myky (Mynky, Munku, Munku, Menku, Kenku, Myy) peoples in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil. Recent descriptions of the language analyze it as a language isolate, in that it "bears no similarity with other language families".[3] Monserrat (2010) is a well-reviewed grammar of the language.
Vitality
[edit]According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, Irantxe-Myky is currently not thriving. While the Myky dialect is considered "vulnerable", the Irantxe variety is deemed "considerably endangered", with only 10 fluent speakers out of the 356 ethnic Irantxe-Myky in the 2006 report. As of 2011, the 280 Irantxe have largely assimilated to Brazilian culture. Most are monolingual in Portuguese, and the remaining Irantxe speakers are over 50 years old. A splinter group, the Myky, however, moved to escape assimilation, and were isolated until 1971. As of 2011, there were 80 ethnic Myky, all of whom spoke the language.
Dialects
[edit]Dialects and location:[4]
- Irantxe dialect: spoken in Cravari village, on the Cravari River (a tributary of the Do Sangue River) in the municipality of Diamantino, Mato Grosso.
- Myky dialect: spoken at an isolated village at the headwaters of the Escondido Creek, in the municipality of Brasnorte, Mato Grosso state.
Language contact
[edit]Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with languages from the Arawak, Tupi, Chapakura-Wanam, Nambikwara, and Yanomami families, likely due to contact.[5]
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Muller et al. (2013)[6] also found lexical similarities between Irantxe-Myky and Nambikwaran.
Phonology
[edit]No instrumental phonetic data pertaining to the Irantxe-Myky language is available. The phonological description of Inratxe-Myky is based on auditory analyses by the authors cited.
Consonants
[edit]Irantxe-Myky has a small consonant inventory. Voicing is not contrastive for any consonant. In the Monserrat analysis shown in the table, there is a series of palatalized stops /pj tj kj/ and nasals /mj nj/, which reviewer D'Angelis (2011) analyzes as /Cj/ sequences. In Monserrat's analysis, /S/ is a separate phoneme from /sj/.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p pj | t tj | k kj | ? | |
| Nasal | m mj | n nj | |||
| Fricative | s | S | h | ||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Approximant | w | j |
Allophonic variation
[edit]- The bilabial /m/ may occur as [mb] word initially, especially among the Irantxe: muhu [mbuhu], mjehy [mbjehi].
- The sibilant /s/ is pronounced [S] before /j/.
- The trill /r/ may also occur as [l].
- The palatal approximant /j/ occurs as [n] before nasal vowels.[7]
Vowels
[edit]The vowel inventory of Irantxe-Myky is large, with 21 phonemic vowels. Vowel length and nasalization are contrastive in the language. The role of tone is not clear.
| Front | Mid | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i i i: | i i i: | u u u: |
| Mid | e e e: | @ @ @: | o o o: |
| Open | a a a: |
In many words, /@/ alternates with /e/.
The maximal syllable shape may be CVC or CjVC word-medially, depending on the analysis. Word-finally, only CV ~ CjV syllables occur.
Orthography
[edit]The linguist Ruth Monserrat, along with native speaker Beth Jurusi, developed a system for spelling the Myky dialect.[4]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p pj | t tj | k kj | ' | |
| Nasal | m mj | n nj | |||
| Fricative | s | x | h | ||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Approximant | w | (l) | j |
Lexicon
[edit]Words in the Irantxe dialect are taken from Loukotka (1968)[8] and Holanda's (1960) larger vocabulary list.[9] The Myky words derive from the dictionary compiled by Monserrat.[4]
gloss Irantxe[8][9] Myky[4] one yamachi kytapy two numa numa head pema rem tongue akirente jakireti eye kutakeci kutakahy nose kaminxi kjamihi hand mimachxi mima woman ekipu namy'i man mi?a mia old person naripu miptosohu water mana: mana maize kuratu kuratu cassava main?in my'i fish miaxtapa miatapa sun ilehe: irehy rain muhu muhu day ma?a ma'a white nakata nakata
References
[edit]- ^ a b Irantxe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "Documenting Manoki (Myky), an isolate of Brazilian Amazonia | Endangered Languages Archive". www.elararchive.org. Retrieved 2025-01-25.
- ^ "Iranxe Manoki - Indigenous Peoples in Brazil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
- ^ a b c d Monserrat, Ruth Maria Fonini and Elizabeth R. Amarante. 1995. Dicionario Myky-Portugues. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Sepeei/SR-5/UFRJ. 48 f.
- ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguistico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasilia: University of Brasilia.
- ^ Muller, Andre, Viveka Velupillai, Soren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarstrom, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
- ^ Monserrat, Ruth Maria (2000). A lingua do povo Myky. Campinas: Curt Nimendaju. pp. 186-196.
- ^ a b Loukotka, Cestmir (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
- ^ a b Holanda Pereira, Adalberto. 1960. Vocabulario da lingua dos indios irantxe. Revista de Antropologia 12:105-115.
Further reading
[edit]
- Meader, R. E. (1967). Iranxe: Notas Grammaticais e Lista Vocabular. (Publicacoes: Serie Diversos Linguistica, 2.) Brasil: Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
- Monserrat, R. F.; Amarante, E. R. (1995). Dicionario Myky-Portugues. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Sepeei/SR-5/UFRJ.
- Monserrat, Ruth. 2010. A lingua do povo Myky. Campinas: Editora Curt Nimuendaju. ISBN 9788599944189
- D'Angelis, Wilmar. 2011. Review of Monserrat (2010) Archived 2015-05-12 at the Wayback Machine. LIAMES - Linguas Indigenas Amerindias, vol 10.
- Anonby, Stan. 2009. A Report on the Irantxe and Myky.
- Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolinguistico y guia bibliografica de los pueblos indigenas sudamericanos: Iranxe.[1]
- Dixon & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.), The Amazonian languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-57021-2.
- Sax, Sarah (2019-09-18). "Only 8 People in This Indigenous Tribe Still Speak Their Native Language. The Amazon Fires May Wipe It Out Completely". Vice.