The Amazonian Languages

Conventions followed
xxv
1
CONVENTIONS FOLLOWED
SPELLING
We have tried to avoid spelling conventíons that are particular to one Janguage,
instead those which are most generally aecepted.
(a) Spanish 'hu' and 'j'. The sounds [wJ and [h1 are shown by 'hu' and:j' respectively
in Spanish orthography. We have gene rally preferred plain 'w' and 'h', e.g.
Witoto rather than Huitoto, Cashinawa rather than Cashinahua, Guahibo rather
than Guajibo. (We have allowed just a l'ew exceptions, e.g. Jivaro [Hivaro] is always
spelt with 'J' and this has been retained. Cahuapana and Chayahuita are almost
always spelt with 'hu' and this is retained here.)
The sound [kJ is variously written as 'k' or 'e' or 'qu'. For names that include a
[k] we have, as a rule, retained the spelling which is best known.
(b) English '-an'. English-speaking linguists often put '-an' on the end of the name
ol' a language family, e.g. Arawakan, Cariban, Tupían. (Although this is not done
cOl1sistel1tly. Mercifully we have never seen Jean or Makúan.) Spanish- and
Portuguese-speaking linguists avoid names el1ding with an English suffix. We think
it most useful to have one universal name for eaeh family (rather than a certain
name when writing in English and another name when writing in Spanish or
Portuguese), and so avoid the '-an'. This does mean that sometimes a language
family and one langllage within the family may be referred lO by the same label, bul
context is almost always sufficient to avoid eonfusion.
Therct are additionl1l rcta50llS ror O\lf following this conventioo. The term
'Arawak' is used by Spanish- and Portllgllese-speaking Iinguists for a well-established
language family. A number of English-speakíng lingllists use 'Arawakan' ror
something quite dilferent, a ehimerical high-level grouping (see §3 of chapter 1)
whieh is said to ínclude what South American lingllísts term 'Arawak' but is in Ihis
c1assífieation named 'Maipuran'. We follow the traditional (and eurrent South
American) pracliee of using 'Arawak' (not 'Maipuran') for the established language
family, and avoid the term 'Arawakan'.
2 LANGUAGE ANO OIALECT, FAMILY ANO SUBGROUP
(a) The tenn 'Ianguage' can be llsed with two quite dilferent meanings. Qne is the
linguistie sen se, when forms of speech that are mutually unintelligible are designated
to be distinet languages. Two forms of speech that are mutually intelligible
are then dialects of one language. The other is the political sense, when eaeh separate
natíon or tribe likes to say that it has íts own language. The two sen ses of 'language'
often give the same result butsometimes they do not. Qne linguísticlanguage
may relate to severaI politieal languages, as when the Swedish and Norwegian
peoples eaeh say that they have a distinet language, whereas these are mutually intelligible
and are thus, on linguístic grounds, dialeets of a single language. Or one
politieallanguage may relate to severallínguistie languages as when the Chinese say
that they aIl speak the Chinese language, but in a number of dialects. In raet the
'dialects' are not mutllally intelligible and are, on Iingllistie eriteria, separate languages.
In this book we employ the term 'language' in the Iinguistie sen se. Note that
earlier work on South Ameriea has lIsed the term 'language' sometimes in the Iinguistie
and sometimes in the polítieal sense. Forinstanee, there are seven Makú
tri bes, eaeh of whieh has its own politieallanguage, but there are just four separate
languages in the linguistie sen se. Yanomami has sometimes been deseribed as
involving fourclose!~ related languages, but it seems most appropriate to eharacterize
Yanomami as a dialeet eontinuum (elfectively, as a single language). Within the
Arawá fami1y, Jamamadi, Jarawara and Banawá are distinct tribes and have been
said to involve distinet languages (indeed, there are eurrently three missionary
teams, each working on its own Bible translation). In faet these speech forms have
abollt 95 per cent voeablllary in eommon and very similar grammars. Eaeh is easily
intelligible to speakers of the others and they are c1early dialeets of one language,
on linguistie eriteria. Within the Tupí-Guaraní subgroup there is sorne eonfusion
about what is a language and what ís a dialect; the eommentary on table 5.1
attempts to provide sorne clarifieation.
(b) We have tried to enSllre that the standard eriteria for proving genetie relationship
between languages are followed in this book. The established rerm for a group
of langllages that is genetically related is 'language family'. Srnaller genetic grollps
within a family are ealled 'branehes' or 'subgroups' of the family. For instance, one
talks of rhe Germanic braneh, or slIbgroup, wirhin the Indo-European family.
Terms sueh as 'stock' and 'phylum' (together with 'micro-phylum', 'macro-phylum',
'meso-phylum') go with the quite different methodology or lexieostatisties and are
best avoided. We thus talk of the Tupí-Guaraní branch, or subgroup, of the Tupí
language family, and so on. (The Portuguese term tronco is sometimes translated