Last Updated: 2020-07-14
Background
Language Family: Language isolate
- Candoshi-Shapra, also known as Candoshi, Kandoshi, Candoxi, or Murato, is spoken in Peru along the Chapuli, Huitoyacu, Pastaza, and Morona river valleys.
Phonology
Consonants
- The inventory in Surrallés (2007) includes voiced stops; however, it represents a phonetic description rather than a phonemic one (p. 255). The voiced stops are simply allophones of their voiceless counterparts (Tuggy 1966, 233).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Bilabial
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Alveolar
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Postalveolar
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Retroflex
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Palatal
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Velar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p ᵐp
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t ⁿt
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k ᵑk
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Affricates
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ts ⁿts
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tʃ ⁿtʃ
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ʈʂ ᶯʈʂ
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Fricatives
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s
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ʃ
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ʂ
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h
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Nasals
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m
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n
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Taps
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ɾ
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Approximants
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j
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w
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are plain and those on the right are prenasalized.
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Vowels
- There is some debate around the back vowel and whether it better reflects /o/ or /u/. I have chosen to follow Michael et al. (2015) and use /o/.
- Vowel length is contrastive in Candoshi-Shapra. Long vowels are marked by duplicate graphemes (Tuggy 1966, 235).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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Mid
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o
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- Tuggy (1966) includes an apostrophe (’) as part of the Candoshi-Shapra alphabet, representing glottal stops (p. 232). However, the same source, which is a dictionary of the language, provides no instances of it. There is no justification of the glottal stop being a phoneme in the language as both Michael et al. (2015) and Surrallés (2007) make no mention of it, so I have chosen to transcribe apostrophes, which make up only 0.1% of the language’s Crúbadán corpus, to nothing in the rule set.
- Stress is denoted by accented vowels; however, we do not account for stress, so accented vowels will be transcribed to their plain counterparts (both ⟨ó⟩ and ⟨ú⟩ transcribe to /o/).
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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a
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/a/
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b
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/ᵐp/
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d
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/ⁿt/
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g
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/ᵑk/
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h
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/h/
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i
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/i/
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k
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/k/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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o
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/o/
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p
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/p/
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r
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/ɾ/
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/o/
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v
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/w/
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x
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/ʈʂ/
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y
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/j/
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z
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/ʂ/
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Multigraph
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ch
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/tʃ/
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ll
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/ⁿtʃ/
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sh
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/ʃ/
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ts
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/ts/
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nts
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/ⁿts/
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nx
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/ᶯʈʂ/
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Misc. Rules
- Consonant clusters are permitted, but they may not be consist of a consonant followed by a sonorant consonant or /h/ (Tuggy 1966, 235).
- Clusters consisting of /h/ followed by a consonant are also not permitted.
References
Michael, Lev, Tammy Stark, Emily Clem, and Will Chang. 2015. “Phonological Inventory of Candoshi-Shapra.” South American Phonological Inventory Database v1.1.5.
Surrallés, Alexandre. 2007. “Los Candoshi.” In Guía Etnográfica de La Alta Amazonia. Vol. VI. Lima, Panama & Washington: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute et Lima: Institut français d’études andines.
Tuggy, John. 1966. Vocabulario Candoshi de Loreto. Serie Lingüística Peruana 2. Yarinacocha: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.