Hixkaryana language

language
name=Hixkaryána
states=Brazil
region=Upper Nhamundá River, Amazonas
speakers=500–600
familycolor=American
fam1=Carib
fam2=Southern
fam3=Southern Guiana
iso2=sai|iso3=hix

Hixkaryana is one of the Carib languages, spoken by just over 500 people on the Nhamundá river, a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil. It is one of a few known natural languages that normally use Object Verb Subject word order, and may have been the first such language to be described (by linguist Desmond C. Derbyshire).

Phonology

Hixkaryana has the following consonant phonemes:

Indirect objects, however, follow the subject:

Moreover, word order in nonfinite embedded clauses is SOV. [http://www.ling.umd.edu/~soltan/LING419B/Handouts/handout3.pdf] . Like most other languages with objects preceding the verb, it is postpositional.

External links

* [http://www.rosettaproject.org/archive/carib/americas/hix/view?searchterm=Hix Hixkaryana Linguistic Overview]
* [http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~ehume/metathesis/Hixkaryana.html Metathesis in Hixkaryana]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=hix Ethnologue report on Hixkaryana]

References

*cite book | author=Aikhenvald, A. & Dixon, R. (Eds.) | title=The Amazonian Languages | location=Oxford | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1999 | id=ISBN 0-521-57021-2
*cite book | author=Derbyshire, D. | title=Hixkaryana | location=Amsterdam | publisher=North-Holland Publishing | year=1979 | id=ISBN
*cite book | author=Derbyshire, D. | title=Hixkaryana and Linguistic Typology | location=Dallas, TX | publisher=Summer Institute of Linguistics | year=1985 | id=ISBN 0-88312-082-8