Garifuna language: Difference between revisions

It is a member of the [[Arawakan languages|Arawakan]] language family but an atypical one since it is spoken outside the Arawakan language area, which is otherwise now confined to the northern parts of South America, and because it contains an unusually high number of [[loanword]]s, from both [[Carib languages]] and a number of [[European languages]] because of an extremely tumultuous past involving warfare, migration and colonization.

 

 

Parts of Garifuna vocabulary are [[#Gender_differences|split between men's speech and women's speech]], and some concepts have two words to express them, one for women and one for men. Moreover, the terms used by men are generally loanwords from Carib while those used by women are [[Arawakan languages|Arawak]].

Descriptions of Island Carib people in the 17th century [[missionaries]] from Europe record the use of two languages: Carib as spoken by the men, and Arawak as spoken by the women. It is conjectured that the males retained the core Carib vocabulary while the grammatical structure of their language mirrored that or Arawak. As such, [[Island Carib language|Island Carib]] as spoken by males is considered either a [[mixed language]] or a [[relexification|relexified]] language. The West African influence in Garifuna is limited to a handful of loanwords and perhaps intonation. Contrary to what some believe, there is no influence from "African phonetics" as there is no such thing as a singular African phonetic system as languages in West Africa and Africa in general have extremely diverse phoneme inventories. The distinction between Garifuna and the [[Kalinago language]] can be explained by simple evolution due to the separation of the Garifuna being sent to Central America.

=== Vocabulary ===

The vocabulary of Garifuna is composed as follows:{{cn|date=August 2020}}

 

Also, there also some few words from [[African languages]]. {{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

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|+ style="text-align: left;" | <ref name=garifuna>{{cite web |title=A Caribbean Vocabulary Compiled In 1666 |url=http://www.uctp.org/garifunalist.html |publisher=United Confederation of Taino People |access-date=2008-05-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080520030207/http://www.uctp.org/garifunalist.html |archive-date=May 20, 2008}}</ref><ref name=carib>{{cite web |title=Kali'na Vocabulary |url=http://wold.livingsources.org/vocabulary/38 |publisher=Max Planck Digital Library |access-date=2012-03-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314052630/http://wold.livingsources.org/vocabulary/38 |archive-date= 2012-03-14}}</ref>

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===Gender differences===

 

 

== Phonology ==

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== Grammar ==

 

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=== Number ===

Garifuna distinguishes singular and plural numbers for some human nouns. The marking of in [[nouns]] is realized through [[suffix|suffixes]]:

 

 

 

Plural animate nouns use animate plural agreement on verbs and other sentence elements. Inanimate nouns do not show plural agreement.

[[Possession (linguistics)|Possession]] on nouns is expressed by [[grammatical person|personal]] [[prefix]]es:

 

 

=== Verb ===

 

==== Examples ====

There are also some irregular verbs.