Kashinawa language

Not to be confused with Tarauacá Kashinawa language.

Cashinahua (also spelled Kaxinawá, Kaxynawa, Caxinawa, and Caxinawá), or Hantxa Kuin, Huni Kui, is an indigenous American language of western South America which belongs to the Panoan language family. It is spoken by about 1,600 Cashinahua people in Perú along the Curanja and Purus rivers; and in Brazil by 400 Cashinahua people in the state of Acre.

About five to ten percent of Cashinahua speakers have some Spanish language proficiency, while forty percent are literate and twenty to thirty percent are literate in Spanish as a second language.

Dialects are Brazilian Kashinawa, Peruvian Kashinawa, and the extinct Juruá Kapanawa (Capanahua of the Juruá River) and Paranawa.

Phonology

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
Close (high)	Oral	i /i/	e /ɨ/	u /u~ʊ~o/
	Nasal	ĩ /ĩ/	ẽ /ɨ̃/	ũ /ũ~õ/
Open (low)	Oral		a /ɑ/
	Nasal		ã /ã/

• Although nasalization is generally marked by placing a tilde over the vowel, some authors choose to mark it with a following ⟨n⟩ to denote that the previous vowel or contiguous vowels are nasalised.

Consonants

Consonants	Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/			k /k/	’ /ʔ/
Fricative		s /s/	x/shr /ʂ/	x/sh /ʃ/		j/h /h/
Affricates		ts /t͡s/		ch/t͡ʃ/
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/
Approximant	v/w /w~β/			y /j/

• The stop consonant d /d/ may be pronounced as an alveolar flap [ɾ] when between two vowels, not unlike the North American English pronunciation of ⟨dd⟩ in the word ladder.

Language development

A Cashinahua dictionary has been compiled and published since 1980. Generatives come before nouns. Articles and adjectives are placed after nouns. Cashinahua uses a distinct interrogative punctuation mark, different from the question mark. There are seven prefixes and five suffixes. Roman script is used.

References

• Cashinahua Pronunciation and Spelling Guide, Native Languages of the Americas website. 1998-2008.
• Wise, Mary Ruth. 1981. Diccionario Cashinahua. Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico del Verano.
• Animacy and mythology in Hantxa Kuin (Cashinahua), Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
• Kensinger, Kenneth M. The phonological hierarchy of Cashinahua (Pano). Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of Oklahoma. 1963.
• Montag, Richard. 2008 Participant Referencing in Cashinahua. SIL International.