Yine

Last Updated: 2020-06-17

SLIGHTLY COMPROMISED: possible conflation between /n/ and /h̃/ (see Misc. Rules)

Background

Language Family: Arawakan / Maipuran / Southern Maipuran / Purus

• Also referred to as Pira, Yine is spoken in Peru.

Phonology

Consonants

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p	t			k
Affricates		ts	tʃ	tç
Fricatives		s	ʃ	ç		h̃
Nasals	m	n
Flaps		ɾ
Approximants		l		j	w

Vowels

• Vowel length is said to be a phonemic feature, but rather marginal (Sebastián and Marlett 2008, 367). Long vowels are indicated by duplicate graphemes.
  • Other than duplicate like-vowels, consecutive vowels do not occur in Yine.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Alphabet

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/a/
e	/e/
g	/h̃/
i	/i/
j	/ç/
k	/k/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
r	/ɾ/
s	/s/
t	/t/
u	/ɯ/
w	/w/
x	/tʃ/
y	/j/
Digraph
ch	/tç/
sh	/ʃ/
ts	/ts/

Misc. Rules

• ⟨g⟩ is realized as [n] preceding /ç/ and /k/ (Bisso 2009, 66). In this environment, both ⟨n⟩ and ⟨g⟩ are sometimes used to indicate the phonetic realization, thus, there is some conflation between /n/ and /h̃/.
• Vowels nasalize following nasals or /h̃/ (Sebastián and Marlett 2008, 367).
• /ɾ/ may be trilled word-initially (ibid.).
• /w/ is realized as [β] preceding front vowels (Nies 2008, 1).

References

Bisso, Alejandro Smith. 2009. “El Vuelo de La Luciérnaga.” In, 3:50–73. UNICEF.

Nies, Joyce. 2008. Diccionario Piro. Edited by Mary Ruth Wise. Ministerio de Educación; Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Sebastián, Rittma Urquía, and Stephen A. Marlett. 2008. “Yine.” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (3). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 365–69. doi:10.1017/s0025100308003356.