Itonama language – The Grey Earl INFO

Itonama is a moribund language isolate spoken by the Itonama people in the Amazonian lowlands of north-eastern Bolivia. Greenberg’s (1987) classification of Itonama as Paezan, a sub-branch of Macro-Chibchan, remains unsupported and Itonama continues to be considered an isolate or unclassified language.

Itonama
Native to	Bolivia
Region	Beni Department
Ethnicity	2,900 (2006)[1]
Native speakers	5 (2007)[1]
Language family	Language isolate
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`ito`
Glottolog	`iton1250`
ELP	Itonama
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It was spoken on the Itonomas River and Lake[2] in Beni Department.

. . . Itonama language . . .

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Nambikwaran languages due to contact.[3]

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[4] found lexical similarities between Itonama and Movima, likely due to contact.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Diphthongs: /ai au/.

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Plain	p	t	tʲ	k	ʔ
	Ejective		tʼ		kʼ
	Voiced	b	d
Affricate	Plain		tʃ
Affricate	Ejective		tʃʼ
Fricative			s			h
Nasal		m	n
Lateral			l
Flap			ɾ
Semivowel		w		j

The postalveolar affricates /tʃ tʃʼ/ have alveolar allophones [ts tsʼ]. Variation occurs between speakers, and even within the speech of a single person.

The semivowel /w/ is realized as a bilabial fricative[β] when preceded and followed by identical vowels.

. . . Itonama language . . .

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