Lokono language

Lokono (Lokono Dian, literally "people's talk" by its speakers), also known as Arawak (, ), is an Arawakan language spoken by the Lokono (Arawak) Indigenous peoples of South America in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and French Guiana. It is the eponymous language of the Indigenous Arawakan language family.

Lokono is an active–stative language.

History

Lokono is a critically endangered language. The Lokono language is most commonly spoken in South America. Some specific countries where this language is spoken include Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Venezuela.

The percentage of living fluent speakers with active knowledge of the language is estimated to be 5% of the ethnic population. There are small communities of semi-speakers who have varying degrees of comprehension and fluency in Lokono that keep the language alive. It is estimated that there are around 2,500 remaining speakers (including fluent and semi-fluent speakers).

The decline in the use of Lokono as a language of communication is due to its lack of transmission from older speakers to the next generation. The language is not being passed to young children, as they are taught to speak the official languages of their countries. The family spans four countries of Central America — Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua — and eight of South America — Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Brazil (and also formerly Argentina and Paraguay). With about 40 extant languages, it is the largest language family in Latin America.

Etymology

Arawak is a tribal name in reference to the main crop food, the cassava root, commonly known as manioc. The cassava root is a popular staple for millions of people in South America, Asia and Africa. It is a woody shrub grown in tropical or subtropical regions. Speakers of Arawak also identify themselves as ', which translates as "the people". They call their language ', "the people's speech".

Alternative names of the same language include Arawák, Arahuaco, Aruak, Arowak, Arawac, Araguaco, Aruaqui, Arwuak, Arrowukas, Arahuacos, Locono, and Luccumi.

Geographic distribution

Lokono is an Arawakan language most commonly found to be spoken in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. There are approximately 2,500 native speakers today. The following are regions where Arawak has been found spoken by native speakers.

! colspan="2" |

!Bilabial

!Alveolar

!Retroflex

!Palatal

!Velar

!Glottal

! rowspan="3"|Stop

!voiceless

!aspirated

!voiced

! colspan="2" |Fricative

! colspan="2" |Nasal

! colspan="2" |Approximant

! rowspan="2" |Rhotic

!trill

!tap

William Pet observes an additional in loanwords.

Vowels

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! Front

! Central

! Back

! Close

! Mid

! Open

Pet notes that phonetic realization of varies between [] and [].

{| class="wikitable"

! Singular

! Plural

! 1st Person

| de, da-

| we, wa-

! 2nd Person

| bi, by-

| hi, hy-

! 3rd Person

| li, ly- (he)

tho, thy- (she)

| ne, na-

Cross-referencing affixes

All verbs are sectioned into transitive, active transitive, and stative intransitive.

Negation

Arawak languages have a negative prefix ma- and attributive-relative prefix ka-. An example of the use is ka-witi-w ("a woman with good eyes") and ma-witti-w ("a woman with bad eyes", i.e., a blind woman).

Tenses

Tenses are added at the end of a sentence: past tense is indicated with bura or bora (from ubura "before"), future tense with dikki (from adiki "after"), present continuous tense uses loko or roko.

Examples

{| class="wikitable"

!English

!Eastern Arawak (French Guiana)

!Western Arawak (Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname)

|One

|Ábą

|Aba

|Two

|Bian

|Biama

|Three

|Kabun

|Kabyn

|Four

|Biti

|Bithi

|Man

|Wadili

|Woman

|Hiaro

|Dog

|Péero

|Sun

|Hadali

|Moon

|Kati

|Kathi

|Water

|Uini

|Vuniabu