Wari’ language
Encyclopedia
The Wari’ language is the sole remaining vibrant language of the Chapacuran language family of the Brazilian–Bolivian border region of the Amazon
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

. It has about 1300–1800 speakers, also called Wari’
Wari'
The Waricaca, also known as the Pakaa Nova, are an Amerindian nation indigenous to the Amazon rainforest. They are native to the state of Rondônia, Brazil and were first seen by European settlers at the shores of the river Pakaa Nova, which is a right-bank-tributary of the Mamoré River...

.

Wari’ has two phonetic oddities: its "skewed" vowel inventory, and the voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate [t͡ʙ̥], which is only reported from four other languages, and is only phonemic in Wari' and two neighbouring languages.

Sounds

Wari’ syllables range in complexity from CV to CVVC. The only exceptions appear to be final consonant clusters involving a glottal stop (see below).

Consonants

  Bilabial
Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...

Dental Post-
alveolar
Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...

Velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

Glottal
Glottal consonant
Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...

plain labialized
Nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...

m n
Plosive p t k ʔ
Affricate
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...

t͡ʙ̥
Fricative
Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...

ʃ
Tap ɾ
Approximant
Approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...

j w h


/t͡ʙ̥/ is a bilabial trill
Bilabial trill
-External links:*...

 preceded by a dental stop, forming a single unit. Only about 24 words contain the sound, some of which are onomatopoeic.

Wari’ has words ending in consonant clusters mʔ and nʔ. These have been analysed as single sounds, but apparently only to avoid complicating the Wari’ syllable structure.

Vowels

Vowels are generally expected to be somewhat evenly distributed in vowel space (that is, spread out rather than bunched up when represented on a vowel chart). Additionally, when a language has few vowels, they will normally be unrounded when front and rounded when back. Usually rounded front vowels and unrounded back vowels are only found in languages with large inventories such as German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

. However, while Wari’ has only six vowels, four of these are high/mid front vowels, of which two are rounded (although /ø/ is somewhat rare). These contrast to only a single back vowel. The front vowels are so close that it is sometimes difficult for a non-native speaker to distinguish them. This results in what is probably the most asymmetrical vowel system known.
Front
Front vowel
A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...

Back
Back vowel
A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...

UR round
Close
Close vowel
A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...

i y
Close-mid
Close-mid vowel
A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...

e ø o
Open
Open vowel
An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...

a
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