Mashco Piro is a poorly attested Arawakan language spoken in Peru, by the Mashco Piro or (meaning 'brothers' or 'countrymen' in Mashco Piro and Yine). Language documentation is limited, since the Mashco Piro are highly nomadic hunter-gatherers who avoid contact with outsiders.
Classification It is very similar to the Piro (Yine) language, with an estimated 60% inherent intelligibility. Terrence Kaufman (1994) considered it a dialect of Piro; Alexandra Aikhenvald (1999) suggests it may rather be a dialect of Iñapari. According to the Yine, the language of the Mashco Piro is more archaic than modern Yine, and is between 50 and 80% comprehensible with it.
Phonology A tentative sketch of Mashco-Piro phonology is presented below.
Consonants +Phonetic table of Mashco-Piro consonantsLabialAlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalPlosivevoicelessvoicedFricativevoicelessvoicedNasalLateralFlapGlide only occurs word-finally and may not be phonemic. In contrast with Yine, Mashco-Piro is not nasalized. The four voiced obstruents are unlikely to be phonemic, as is the palatal nasal , therefore making the Mashco-Piro consonant inventory identical to that of Yine, though the former lacks the alveolar and palatal affricates , which are suspected to occur but are unattested in the data.
Vowels +Phonetic table of vowelsFrontCentralBackClosetenselaxMidtense laxOpen occurs exclusively before and is likely an allophone of in that environment. is evidently an allophone of before a nasal consonant. is also considered an allophone of . Presumably Mashco-Piro also has contrastive vowel length, though this is not well attested. Its phonemic vowel inventory is thus likely identical to that of Yine: +Phonemic table of vowelsFrontCentralBackClose () ()Mid ()Open
Vocabulary Around 300 words in the language were recorded.
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