Irantxe language
Irántxe (Irántxe, Iranxe, Iranshe) /iˈɻɑːntʃeɪ/, also known as Mỹky (Münkü) or still as Irántxe-Münkü, is an indigenous language spoken by the Irántxe (Iránxe, Iranche, Manoki, Munku) and Mỹky (Mynky, Münkü, 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" (Arruda 2003). Monserrat (2010) is a well-reviewed grammar of the language.
| Irántxe | |
|---|---|
| Irántxe-Mỹky | |
| Manoki, Mỹky | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Mato Grosso |
| Ethnicity | 280 Irántxe and 80 Münkü (2012)[1] |
Native speakers | 90, including 10 Irántxe proper (2012)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | irn |
| Glottolog | iran1263 |
| ELP | Irantxe |
Vitality and dialects
According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, Irántxe-Mỹky is currently not thriving. While the Mỹky dialect is considered "vulnerable", the Irántxe variety is deemed "considerably endangered", with only 10 fluent speakers out of the 356 ethnic Irántxe-Mỹky in the 2006 report. As of 2011, the 280 Irántxe have largely assimilated to Brazilian culture. Most are monolingual in Portuguese, and the remaining Irántxe speakers are over 50 years old. A splinter group, the Mỹky, however, moved to escape assimilation, and were isolated until 1971. As of 2011, there were 80 ethnic Mỹky, all of whom spoke the language.
Dialects and location:[2]
- Irántxe dialect: spoken in Cravari village, on the Cravari River (a tributary of the Do Sangue River) in the municipality of Diamantino, Mato Grosso.
- Mỹky dialect: spoken at an isolated village at the headwaters of the Escondido Creek, in the municipality of Brasnorte, Mato Grosso state.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with languages from the Arawak, Tupi, Chapakura-Wañam, Nambikwara, and Yanomami families, likely due to contact.[3]
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[4] also found lexical similarities between Irántxe-Mỹky and Nambikwaran.
Phonology
No instrumental phonetic data pertaining to the Irántxe-Mỹky language is available. The phonological description of Inrátxe-Mỹky is based on auditory analyses by the authors cited.
Consonants
Irántxe-Mỹky 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, /ʃ/ is a separate phoneme from /sʲ/.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p pʲ | t tʲ | k kʲ | ʔ | |
| Nasal | m mʲ | n nʲ | |||
| Fricative | s | ʃ | h | ||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Approximant | w | j |
Allophonic variation[5]
- The bilabial /m/ may occur as [mb] word initially, especially among the Irántxe: muhu [mbuhu], mjehy [mbʲɛhɨ].
- The sibilant /s/ is pronounced [ʃ] before /j/.
- The trill /r/ may also occur as [l].
- The palatal approximant /j/ occurs as [ɲ] before nasal vowels.
Vowels
The vowel inventory of Irántxe-Mỹky 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 ĩ iː | ɨ ɨ̃ ɨː | u ũ uː |
| Mid | ɛ ɛ̃ ɛː | ə ə̃ əː | ɔ ɔ̃ ɔː |
| Open | a ã aː |
In many words, /ə/ alternates with /ɛ/.
The maximal syllable shape may be CVC or CjVC word-medially, depending on the analysis. Word-finally, only CV ~ CʲV syllables occur.
Lexicon
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Irántxe dialect,[6] later expanded in Holanda's (1960) larger vocabulary list.[7] The Mỹky words derive from the dictionary compiled by Monserrat.[2]
gloss Irántxe[6][7] Mỹky[2] one yamachí kỹtapy two numá numã head pemã rem tongue akirente jakirẽti eye kutakecí kutakahy nose kamínxí kjamĩhĩ hand mimãchxi mimã woman ekipu namy’i man miʔá mía old person naripú miptosohu water manaː manã maize kuratu kuratu cassava mãinʔin mỹ’ĩ fish miaxtapá miatapa sun ileheː irehy rain muhú muhu day máʔá ma’a white nakatá nakata
References
- Irántxe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- Monserrat, Ruth Maria Fonini and Elizabeth R. Amarante. 1995. Dicionário Mỹky-Português. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Sepeei/SR-5/UFRJ. 48 f.
- Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
- Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, 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 língua do povo Mỹky. Campinas: Curt Nimendajú. pp. 186–196.
- Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
- Holanda Pereira, Adalberto. 1960. Vocabulário da língua dos índios irántxe. Revista de Antropologia 12:105-115.
Further reading
- Meader, R. E. (1967). Iranxe: Notas Grammaticais e Lista Vocabular. (Publicações: Série Diversos Lingüística, 2.) Brasil: Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
- Monserrat, R. F.; Amarante, E. R. (1995). Dicionário Mỹky-Português. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Sepeei/SR-5/UFRJ.
- Monserrat, Ruth. 2010. A língua do povo Mỹky. Campinas: Editora Curt Nimuendajú. ISBN 9788599944189
- D’Angelis, Wilmar. 2011. Review of Monserrat (2010). LIAMES – Línguas Indígenas Ameríndias, vol 10.
- Anonby, Stan. 2009. A Report on the Irántxe and Myky.
- Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: Iránxe.
- Arruda, Rinaldo. 2003. Iranxe Manoki. Instituto Socioambiental.
- 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.