Pemón (language)
| Pemón | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Venezuela , Guyana , Brazil | |
| speaker | over 30,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
aoc |
|
Pemón is the language of the Pemon Indians . It belongs to the Caribbean languages . The language is mainly spoken in Gran Sabana , Venezuela.
phonetics
'(indicates short pauses in speech, only in spoken language, not found in singing)
() (Brackets are used to represent aesthetic sound phenomena)
Vowels
The pemón language has the following vowels:
a: / a /
e: / e / or / ε:
i: / i /
ï or ü: / i
o: / o / or / ø /
ö: / ø / or / ə / (similar to German ö)
u: / u / (similar to German ü)
Consonants
b, p (depending on the region, once voiced like b, or unvoiced like p)
ch (similar to German and French ch, depending on the region also a sharper s, e.g. cho'chi or s ochi)
d (often changes to y, Kavana d én or Kavana y én)
k (sounds like n for g)
r (r is always soft, very similar to l)
s (soft s between vowels, e.g. tüse)
t (often pronounced like d after n, en t ana or en d ana)
m, n, ñ, v, w, y
grammar
The Pemón language has no articles. There are no prepositions, but postpositions
Pronouns
The following table shows the pronouns and noun affixes:
| pronoun | Subject S. | |
| 1s | yuurö | -V |
| 2s | amörö | aV |
| 3s | mö'rö | iV |
| 1 & 2 | yuurötokon | XV-con |
| 1 & 3 | inna | |
| 3p | amörönokon | aV-kn |
Verbs
The verbs are usually at the end of the sentence or between direct object and subject. There are prefixes and suffixes to identify the person and number. The pronouns are appended.
Lexicons
The pemón is closely related to other Caribbean languages. Here are a few words in Pemón and in Cumanagota (Chaima) and Tamanaku (Tamañkú). The words in these last two languages were written down by Alexander von Humboldt . The north Caribbean Pémono language along the Upper Majagua River is not identical to Pemón, but is close to Yabarana , Mapoyo and Tamanaku (Tamañkú).
| Pemón | Cumanagota (Chaima) | Tamanaku (Tamañkú) | German |
| yuurö | ure | ure | I |
| tuna | tuna | tuna | water |
| conopo | conopo | canepo | rain |
| puturu | poturu | puturo | Knowledge |
| apoc | apoto | u-apto | Fire |
| kapüi | nuna | nuna | Moon, month |
| wan | guane | uane | honey |
| aute | ata | aute | House |
literature
- Mariano Gutiérrez Salazar: Gramática Didáctica de la Lengua Pemón. Orden de Hermanos Menores Capuchinos, Caracas 2001, ISBN 980-244-282-8 .
- Cesareo de Armellada, Mariano Gutiérrez Salazar: Diccionario pemón-castellano-castellano-pemón. 4th edition. Hermanos Menores Capuchinos Publishing House, Caracas 2007, ISBN 978-980-244-512-7 .