Pemon language


The Pemon language, is an indigenous language of the Cariban family spoken by some 30,000 Pemon people, in Venezuela's Southeast, particularly in the Canaima National Park, in the Roraima State of Brazil and in Guyana.
It covers several dialects, including Arecuna, Camaracota, Camaracoto, Ingariko, Taulipang, and Taurepan. The Pemon language may also be known and designated informally by one of the two dialects Arecuna or Ingariko, or incorrectly under the name Kapon which normally designates another closely related small group of languages.
Pemon is one of several other closely related Venezuelan Cariban languages which also include the Macushi and Kapon. These four languages form the group of Pemongan languages. The broad Kapon and selective Ingariko terms are also used locally as an common ethnonym grouping Pemón, Akawaio, and Patamono peoples, and may be used as well to refer to the group of the four Pemongan languages that they speak.

Typology

The Pemon language's syntax type is SOV with alternation to OVS.

Writing

Pemon was an oral language until the 20th century. Then efforts were made to produce dictionaries and grammars, primarily by Catholic missionaries, specially Armellada and Gutiérrez Salazar. The Latin alphabet has been used, adding diacritic signs to represent some phonemes not existing in Spanish.

Phonology

Vowels

Pemon has the following vowels:
FrontCentralBack
Close
Open-mid
Open

There are still texts only using Spanish characters, without distinctive characters for /o/ or /ɵ/. Diphthong sounds are.

Consonants

Allophones of /s n k j/ are .

Grammar

Pronouns in Pemon are:
PemonEnglish
yuréI, me
amäreyou
muere, meserehe, she
urekonwe
inawe
amärenokonyou
ichamonanthey, them

Literature