Sapé language
| Sapé | |
|---|---|
| Kaliana | |
| Native to | Venezuela |
| Region | Paragua and Karuna rivers |
| Ethnicity | 9 (2011 census)[1] |
| Extinct | 2004[1] |
Arutani–Sape ?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | spc |
| Glottolog | sape1238 |
| ELP | Sapé |
Sapé a.k.a. Kaliana is an extinct language recently spoken along the Paragua River and Karuna River. There were only about a few dozen speakers in the mid-1900s, and by the 2000s, only a few elderly speakers were found. Sapé may be a language isolate.
Documentation
Sape is one of the most poorly attested extant languages in South America, and there is no comprehensive linguistic description of the language other than scattered word lists.[2][3]
Word lists have been collected by Armellada & Matallana (1942)[4], Migliazza (1978)[5], Walter Coppens[6], and Francia Medina.[7]
Sociolinguistic situation
According to Labrada & Medina (2019), the last fluent speaker of Sapé, Ramón Quimillo Lezama, died in November 2018. However, at least 2 semi-speakers remain.[8] Traditionally located along the Karún River and the Upper Paragua River, most Sapé have assimilated into Pemon-speaking villages.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Warao, Chibchan, Puinave-Kak, Jirajara, Tukano (especially Cubeo and Wanano), Arutani, and Jukude ('Maku') language families due to contact.[9]
Similarities with Chibchan are primarily with the Magdalena subgroup.[9]: 326
References
- ^ a b Sapé at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020)
- ^ Hammarström, Harald. 2010. 'The status of the least documented language families in the world'. In Language Documentation & Conservation, v 4, p 183 [1]
- ^ Dixon and Aikhenvald, 1999, The Amazonian Languages, p 343.
- ^ Armellada, Cesareo de & Baltasar de Matallana. 1942. Exploración del Paragua. Boletín de la Sociedad Venezolana de Ciencias Naturales 8, 61-110.
- ^ Migliazza, Ernest C. 1978. Maku, Sape and Uruak languages current status and basic lexicon. Anthropological Linguistics 20(3), 133-140.
- ^ Coppens, Walter. 2008 [1983]. Los Uruak (Arutani). In Miguel Ángel Perera (ed.) Los aborígenes de Venezuela, 2nd edition, Volume 2, 705-737. Caracas: Fundación La Salle de Ciencias Naturales/Instituto Caribe de Antropología y Sociología.
- ^ Medina, Francia. 2008. Los Sapé: notas sobre su situación presente y actualización bibliográfica. In Miguel Ángel Perera (ed.) Los aborígines de Venezuela, 2nd edition, Volume 2, 739-746. Caracas: Ediciones IVIC, Monte Ávila Editores, ICAS, Fundación La Salle.
- ^ Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada & Francia Medina (2019). Sapé (Venezuela) — Language Snapshot. In Peter K. Austin (ed.) Language Documentation and Description, vol 16. London: EL Publishing. pp. 169-175.
- ^ a b Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
External links
- Alain Fabre, 2005, Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: SAPÉ.
- Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, Sapé Collection