Terêna language
Terêna or Etelena is an Arawakan language spoken by 15,000 Terenas. The language has a dictionary and written grammar. Many Terena people have low Portuguese proficiency. It is spoken in Mato Grosso do Sul. About 20% are literate in their language, 80% literate in Portuguese.
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View a machine-translated version of the Portuguese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must follow the LLM translation guideline, revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 568 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Língua terena]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|pt|Língua terena}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. Please help improve it by providing page numbers for existing citations. (January 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
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| Terêna |
|---|
| Etelena |
| Brazil |
| Mato Grosso do Sul |
| Terena people |
| 16,000 (2006) |
| Arawakan |
SouthernBolivia–ParanaTerêna | | Terena proper Chané † Guaná † Kinikinao † | | ter | | Variously:ter – Terenagqn – Kinikinao & Guanácaj – Chané | | tere1279 | | Terena | | Guana (Brazil) |
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Terêna or Etelena is an Arawakan language spoken by 15,000 Terenas. The language has a dictionary and written grammar. Many Terena people have low Portuguese proficiency. It is spoken in Mato Grosso do Sul. About 20% are literate in their language, 80% literate in Portuguese.
Terêna has an active–stative syntax and verb-object-subject as default word order.
Terêna originally had four varieties: Kinikinao, Terena proper, Guaná, and Chané. These varieties have sometimes been considered to be separate languages. Carvalho (2016) has since demonstrated all four to be the same language. Only Terena proper is still spoken.
Terena originated in the Northwestern Chaco. As a result, many Northern Guaicuruan loanwords can be found in Terena.
There are also many Tupi-Guarani loanwords in Terena and other southern Arawakan languages.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| p | t | (tʃ) | k | ʔ | |
| ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |||
| s | ʃ | h | |||
| ⁿz | ⁿʒ | ||||
| m | n | (ɲ) | |||
| ɾ | |||||
| l | (ʎ) | ||||
| w ~ v | j |
/w, ʃ, n, l/ may often be heard as [v, tʃ, ɲ, ʎ].
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| i ĩ iː | (ɨ) | u ũ uː | |
| e ẽ eː | o õ oː | ||
| ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː | ||
| a ã aː |
[ɨ] is heard as an allophone of /i/.
- Terena Sign Language
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- Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (1999). "The Arawak language family". In Dixon, R. M. W.; Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (eds.). The Amazonian Languages.
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