Shipibo language
Panoan language spoken in Peru and Brazil
title: "Shipibo language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["panoan-languages", "languages-of-peru", "languages-of-brazil", "indigenous-languages-of-western-amazonia", "shipibo-conibo"] description: "Panoan language spoken in Peru and Brazil" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipibo_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Panoan language spoken in Peru and Brazil ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Shipibo-Conibo |
| fontcolor | #ffffff |
| states | Peru |
| region | Ucayali Region |
| ethnicity | Shipibo-Conibo people |
| speakers | 26,000 |
| date | 2003 |
| ref | e18 |
| familycolor | pano-tacanan |
| fam1 | Panoan |
| fam2 | Mainline Panoan |
| fam3 | Nawa |
| fam4 | Chama |
| lc1 | shp |
| ld1 | Shipibo-Conibo |
| lc2 | kaq |
| ld2 | Tapiche Capanahua |
| glotto | ship1253 |
| glottorefname | Shipibo-Konibo–Kapanawa |
| map | Shipibo.png |
| altname | Shipibo |
| dia1 | Shipibo–Konibo |
| dia2 | Kapanawa |
| dia3 | ?Xipináwa |
| image | Pizarra_de_inicial_en_Bena_Jema.JPG |
| :: |
| name = Shipibo-Conibo | fontcolor = #ffffff | states = Peru | region = Ucayali Region | ethnicity = Shipibo-Conibo people | speakers = 26,000 | date = 2003 | ref = e18 | familycolor = pano-tacanan | fam1 = Panoan | fam2 = Mainline Panoan | fam3 = Nawa | fam4 = Chama | lc1 = shp | ld1 = Shipibo-Conibo | lc2 = kaq | ld2 = Tapiche Capanahua | glotto = ship1253 | glottorefname = Shipibo-Konibo–Kapanawa | map = Shipibo.png | altname = Shipibo | dia1 = Shipibo–Konibo | dia2 = Kapanawa | dia3 = ?Xipináwa | nativename = | image = Pizarra_de_inicial_en_Bena_Jema.JPG
| type = music | filename = Himno nacional del Perú en shipibo.ogg | title = Peruvian national anthem in Shipibo | description = National Anthem of Peru in Shipibo | pos = right
Dialects
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Shipibo_jar_(UBC-2010)a.jpg" caption="A Shipibo jar"] ::
Shipibo has three attested dialects:
- Shipibo and Konibo (Conibo), which have merged
- Kapanawa of the Tapiche River, which is obsolescent
Extinct Xipináwa (Shipinawa) is thought to have been a dialect as well, but there is no linguistic data.
Phonology
Vowels
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Shipibo_monophthongs_chart.svg" caption="p=282}}"] ::
::data[format=table title="Monophthong phonemes{{sfnp|Valenzuela|Márquez Pinedo|Maddieson|2001|p=282}}"]
| Front | Central | Back | Close | Mid | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
- and are lower than their cardinal counterparts (in addition to being more front in the latter case): , , is more front than cardinal : , whereas is more close and more central than cardinal . The first three vowels tend to be somewhat more central in closed syllables, whereas before coronal consonants (especially ) can be as central as .
- In connected speech, two adjacent vowels may be realized as a rising diphthong.
Nasal
- The oral vowels are phonetically nasalized after a nasal consonant, but the phonological behaviour of these allophones is different from the nasal vowel phonemes .
- Oral vowels in syllables preceding syllables with nasal vowels are realized as nasal, but not when a consonant other than intervenes.
Unstressed
- The second one of the two adjacent unstressed vowels is often deleted.
- Unstressed vowels may be devoiced or even elided between two voiceless obstruents.
Consonants
::data[format=table title="Consonant phonemes{{sfnp|Valenzuela|Márquez Pinedo|Maddieson|2001|p=281}}"] | Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Retroflex | Palato- alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | Nasal | Plosive | Affricate | Fricative | voiceless | voiced | Approximant | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::
- are bilabial, whereas is labial–velar.
- is most typically a fricative , but other realizations (such as an approximant , a stop and an affricate ) also appear. The stop realization is most likely to appear in word-initial stressed syllables, whereas the approximant realization appears most often as onsets to non-initial unstressed syllables.
- are alveolar , whereas is dental .
- The distinction can be described as an apical–laminal one.
- is velar, whereas is palatal.
- Before nasal vowels, are nasalized and may be even realized close to nasal stops .
- is realized as before , as before and as before . It does not occur before .
- is a very variable sound:
- Intervocalically, it is realized either as continuant, with or without weak frication ( or ).
- Sometimes (especially in the beginning of a stressed syllable) it can be realized as a postalveolar affricate , or a stop-approximant sequence .
- It can also be realized as a postalveolar flap .
References
Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. .
- Elias-Ulloa, Jose (2000). El Acento en Shipibo (Stress in Shipibo). Thesis. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima - Peru.
- Elias-Ulloa, Jose (2005). Theoretical Aspects of Panoan Metrical Phonology: Disyllabic Footing and Contextual Syllable Weight. Ph.D. Dissertation. Rutgers University. ROA 804 https://web.archive.org/web/20060219075222/http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?id=1107.
- Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. .
- Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
- Loriot, James and Barbara E. Hollenbach. 1970. "Shipibo paragraph structure." Foundations of Language 6: 43–66. (This was the seminal Discourse Analysis paper taught at SIL in 1956–7.)
- Loriot, James, Erwin Lauriault, and Dwight Day, compilers. 1993. Diccionario shipibo - castellano. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 31. Lima: Ministerio de Educación and Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. 554 p. (Spanish zip-file available online http://www.sil.org/americas/peru/show_work.asp?id=928474530143&Lang=eng) This has a complete grammar published in English by SIL only available through SIL.
- {{citation |last1=Valenzuela |first1=Pilar M. |last2=Márquez Pinedo |first2=Luis |last3=Maddieson |first3=Ian |year=2001 |title=Shipibo |journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=281–285 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40852342 |doi=10.1017/S0025100301002109 |doi-access=free
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