My name is Marianela Quezada, I am a part of Rutgers University's class of 2019. My major here at Rutgers is a double major in History & Political Science, with a minor in Sociology. I am new to Wikipedia and am using this sandbox page to help me understand how to contribute and edit to Wikipedia better. I am using this Wiki sandbox page for my Languages in Peril class. It seems somewhat confusing, but that is okay. That is what this tutorial on this information is for. Being bold is important on Wikipedia[1][2]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Be bold guideline. Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  2. ^ Broughton, John (2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.

Endangered Languages Project edit

Barasana-Eduria is the language I have chosen for my Endangered Languages project. It is very exciting to see that as students, we are going to be contributing useful information to such a resourceful online database like Wikipedia. The page for Barasana has very little information on it; so far it contains: a chart of the various languages of Colombia, different names of the language, and briefly mentions the people who speak the language. Hopefully, I will be able to contribute a variety of different things to this Wiki-page through this project.[1]

Contribution edit

There are a lot of things I wish to contribute to the Barasana-Eduria language page, with the use of my gathered references and sources. I will provide classification information of the language and the over arching language which it comes from. I also hope to include details about the exact location where the people who speak the language can be found. As well as expand on things such as syntax, sentence structure, nasality of the language, and very other grammatical points of the language.

Barasana-Eduria language edit

Barasana is one of the various languages spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas belonging to the Amazonian region, specifically in Colombia. It belongs to the language family of the Tucanoan languages, as one of the Eastern Tucanoan languages.The people who speak the language are also known as the Barasana. The population of its native speakers is about 1,990 people, according to a census taken in 1993.[2] Native speakers' tribes are spread out among the Pira Paraná River in Colombia and the banks of the Vaupés River Basin.[3]

The different dialects within this language family utilize their individual languages as barriers to distinguish themselves through their own identity. Marriage between two people who speak the same language are looked at as a taboo; for they are marrying their own brothers and sisters.[3] Instead, Barasanians participated in exogamous marriages, which promoted multilingualism of the people in the region. It is also served as an explanation for similarities between different dialects in the region. Barasana and Eduria are often considered separate languages by the individuals of these groups and allow each other to intermarry. However, the languages' similarities are up to 98%; the other 2% accounts for minor differences in phonology.[2]

Many different grammar characteristics of Barasana separate it distinctively from various other groups in the language family. Out of the Eastern Tucanoan languages, Barasana is the only one to maintain a three portion distinction between spatial and temporal distances.[4] It also differed in many other things such as nasality of words, consonantal systems, phonemes, and imperatives.

Geographical distribution edit

 
Map displaying the local region in which the native speakers of Barasana can be located. More specifically, along the Vaupés River Basin.

Native speakers' tribes are located within and throughout Colombia, specifically in the region of the Vaupés River Basin and the Pira Paraná River. The map located illustrates the specific region of Colombia in which the indigenous tribe is most commonly located in. Among this location, according to a 1993 census, there are approximately 1,900 speakers; which classifies this language as endangered. It is vigorously used in standard form, but is not widespread throughout the region. [2]

References edit

Aikhenvald, A. (1996). Areal Diffusion in Northwest Amazonia: The Case of Tariana. Anthropological Linguistics, 38(1), 73-116. Retrieved from
        http://www.jstor.org/stable/30028444


Aikhenvald, A. (2008). Multilingual Imperatives: The Elaboration of a Category in Northwest Amazonia. International Journal of American Linguistics, 74(2), 189-225.
        doi:10.1086/587704


Barasana. (n.d.).  (2017, March 04). Retrieved March 06, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barasana


Dixon, R. M., & Aikhenvald, A. Y. (1999). The Amazonian languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved March 8, 2017, from
        https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EF7GueYuQt0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA436&dq=taiwano 


Hammarström, H., & Forkel, R. (n.d.). Barasana-Eduria. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/bara1380


Peng, L. (2000). Nasal Harmony in Three South American Languages. International Journal of American Linguistics, 66(1), 76-97. Retrieved from
        http://www.jstor.org/stable/1265960


G. L. Piggott. (1992). Variability in Feature Dependency: The Case of Nasality. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 10(1), 33-77. Retrieved from
        http://www.jstor.org/stable/4047766


Smith, R. D. (1977). Discourse Grammar: Studies in Indigenous Languages of Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from
        https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/8810


Sorensen, A. (1967). Multilingualism in the Northwest Amazon. American Anthropologist, 69(6), new series, 670-684. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/669671


Stump, G. (1993). How Peculiar Is Evaluative Morphology? Journal of Linguistics, 29(1), 1-36. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4176206


Zucchi, A., & Vidal, S. (2000). Historia y etnicidad en el noroeste amazónico. Caracas: Instituto Venezolano de Investigación Científica. Retrieved March 8, 2017, from
        https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=30vHMvqutxYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA101&dq=taiwano 

Purpose edit

This is a list of compiled references/sources I am going to use for the Endangered Languages Project. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd gladly be willing to take them!

Marianelaq17 (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Marianela Quezada

General references edit

  1. ^ "Barasana-Eduria language". Wikipedia. 2015-10-16.
  2. ^ a b c "Barasana-Eduria". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  3. ^ a b "Multilingual Imperatives: The Elaboration of a Category in Northwest Amazonia on JSTOR" (PDF). doi:10.1086/587704.pdf. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Piggott, G. L. (1992-01-01). "Variability in Feature Dependency: The Case of Nasality". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 10 (1): 33–77.