Wayuu

Last Updated: 2020-06-29

Background

Language Family: Arawakan / Maipuran / Northern Maipuran / Caribbean

• Also referred to as Goajiro and Wayuunaiki, Wayuu is spoken within the Guajira department, along the Guajira Peninsula located in the northern tip of South America.

Phonology

Consonants

• Some documentation includes /β/ and /ɲ/ as phonemes corresponding to ⟨v⟩ and ⟨ñ⟩ respectively (Hildebrandt 1963; Uterga 1895, as cited in Sabogal (2018), pp. 50-52). However, given that other authors omit them from the phonemic inventory, citing them as allophones of /w/ and /n/ respectively, forming no minimal pairs (Álvarez 2017, 18; Sabogal 2018, 50, 52), I have also chosen to exclude them.
• Excluding /h/, /r/, /w/, and /j/, consonants can geminate (Holmer 1949, 49).

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p	t			k	ʔ
Affricates			tʃ
Fricatives		s	ʃ			h
Nasals	m	n
Flaps		ɺ
Trills		r
Approximants	w			j

Vowels

• Vowel length is contrastive. Long vowels are indicated by repeated graphemes (Sabogal 2018, 49).
• There is some debate as to whether /ɯ/ or /ɨ/ corresponds to ⟨ü⟩. Whereas Mansen (1984) opts for /ɨ/ (p. 4), Álvarez (2017) and Sabogal (2018) opt for /ɯ/ (p. 18; p. 49). I have chosen to use /ɯ/, which is more consistent with recent documentation.
• Rising vowel sequences can be pronounced as diphthongs or independent monophthongs (i.e. the pronunciation is in free variation; Sabogal 2018, 50).
• Vowel harmony is present in Wayuu, structured on the basis of fronting and rounding (Sabogal 2018, 53).
• Vowels often become nasalized; however, this is not a phonemic feature (Mansen 1984, 9).

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ u
Mid	e		o
Low		a
Note: The high back vowel on the left is unrounded and the high back vowel on the right is rounded.

Alphabet

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/a/
e	/e/
i	/i/
j	/h/
k	/k/
l	/ɺ/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
r	/r/
s	/s/
t	/t/
u	/u/
ü	/ɯ/
w	/w/
y	/j/
’	/ʔ/
Digraph
ch	/tʃ/
sh	/ʃ/

Lenition Rules

• /k/ and /p/ become voiced preceding /ɺ/ (Holmer 1949, 49).

Misc. Rules

• /ɺ/ becomes /r/ preceding front vowels (Sabogal 2018, 60).
• /ɺ/ is unpronounced when preceding a monomaraic (short) /i/ (Sabogal 2018, 60).
• Word-final vowels and vowels preceding /s/, /tʃ/, and /ʃ/ are often pronounced lenis or unpronounced (Holmer 1949, 50).
• Vowel elision and liquid fortition often occur in tandem (Sabogal 2018, 59, 60). First, vowels are elided when preceding a liquid and following an obstruent. Then, with the resulting liquid-obstruent sequence, the liquid becomes /t/ (or assimilates to /n/ if the obstruent was an /n/).

References

Álvarez, José. 2017. Manual de La Lengua Wayuu. Organización Indígena De La Guajira Yanama.

Hildebrandt, Martha. 1963. Diccionario Guajiro-Español. Comisión Indigenista, Ministerio de Justicia, Caracas.

Holmer, Nils M. 1949. “Goajiro (Arawak) I: Phonology.” International Journal of American Linguistics 15 (1): 45–46.

Mansen, Richard. 1984. Aprendamos Guajiro: Gramática Pedagógica de Guajiro. 1a ed. [S.l: s.n.

Sabogal, Andres M. 2018. “The Variable Expression of Transitive Subject and Possessor in Wayuunaiki (Guajiro).” PhD thesis, Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico.

Uterga, Esteban de. 1895. Nociones Elementales Del Idioma Goagiro Con Su Correspondiente Vocabulario. Roma: Tipografía de la Sagrada Congregación de Propaganda Fide.