Garifuna language

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Garifuna
Native to	North Coast of Garifuna people
Native speakers	120,000 (2001–2019)[1]
Language family	Arawakan Northern Caribbean Garifuna
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Belize  Guatemala
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cab
Glottolog	gari1256
ELP	Garífuna

Garifuna (Karif) is a minority language widely spoken in villages of

Parts of Garifuna vocabulary are split between men's speech and women's speech, and some concepts have two words to express them, one for women and one for men. Moreover, the terms used by men are generally loanwords from Carib while those used by women are Arawak.

The Garifuna language was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2008 along with Garifuna music and dance.^[3]

Distribution

Garifuna is spoken in

The vocabulary of Garifuna is composed as follows:^[citation needed]

Also, there also some few words from

Relatively few examples of diglossia remain in common speech. It is possible for men and women to use different words for the same concept such as au ~ nugía for the pronoun "I", but most such words are rare and often dropped by men. For example, there are distinct Carib and Arawak words for "man" and "women", four words altogether, but in practice, the generic term mútu "person" is used by both men and women and for both men and women, with grammatical gender agreement on a verb, adjective, or demonstrative, distinguishing whether mútu refers to a man or to a woman (mútu lé "the man", mútu tó "the woman").

There remains, however, a diglossic distinction in the

Phonology

[o] and [e] are allophones of /ɔ/ and /ɛ/.^[10]

Grammar

Personal pronouns

Independent personal pronouns in Garifuna distinguish the social gender of the speaker:

The forms au and amürü are of Cariban origin, and the others are of Arawakan origin.

Number

Garifuna distinguishes singular and plural numbers for some human nouns. The marking of in

Possession on nouns is expressed by personal prefixes:

• ibágari "life"
• n-ibágari "my life"
• b-ibágari "your (singular) life"
• l-ibágari "his life"
• t-ibágari "her life"
• wa-bágari "our life"
• h-ibágari "your (plural) life"
• ha-bágari "their life"

Verb

For the Garifuna

The paradigms of grammatical conjugation are numerous.

Examples

The conjugation of the verb alîha "to read" in the present continuous tense:

• n-alîha-ña "I am reading"
• b-alîha-ña "you (singular) are reading"
• l-alîha-ña "he is reading"
• t-alîha-ña "she is reading"
• wa-lîha-ña "we are reading"
• h-alîha-ña "you (plural) are reading"
• ha-lîha-ña "they are reading"

The conjugation of the verb alîha "to read" in the simple present/past tense:

• alîha-tina "I read"
• alîha-tibu "you (singular) read"
• alîha-ti "he reads"
• alîha-tu "she reads"
• alîha-tiwa "we read"
• alîha-tiü "you (plural) read"
• alîha-tiñu "they (masculine) read"
• alîha-tiña "they (feminine) read"

There are also some irregular verbs.

Numerals

From "3" upwards, the numbers of Garifuna are exclusively of French origin and are based on the vigesimal system,^{[citation needed]} which, in today's French, is apparent at "80":

• 1 = aban
• 2 = biñá, biama, bián
• 3 = ürüwa (< trois)
• 4 = gádürü (<quatre)
• 5 = seingü (<cinq)
• 6 = sisi (<six)
• 7 = sedü (<sept)
• 8 = widü (<huit)
• 9 = nefu (<neuf)
• 10 = dîsi (<dix)
• 11 = ûnsu (<onze)
• 12 = dûsu (<douze)
• 13 = tareisi (<treize)
• 14 = katorsu (<quatorze)
• 15 = keinsi (<quinze)
• 16 = dîsisi, disisisi (< "dix-six" →seize)
• 17 = dîsedü, disisedü (<dix-sept)
• 18 = dísiwidü (<dix-huit)
• 19 = dísinefu (<dix-neuf)
• 20 = wein (<vingt)
• 30 = darandi (<trente)
• 40 = biama wein (< 2 x vingt → quarante)
• 50 = dimí san (< "demi cent" →cinquante)
• 60 = ürüwa wein (< "trois-vingt" → soixante)
• 70 = ürüwa wein dîsi (< "trois-vingt-dix" → soixante-dix)
• 80 = gádürü wein (<quatre-vingt)
• 90 = gádürü wein dîsi (<quatre-vingt-dix)
• 100 = san (<cent)
• 1,000 = milu (<mil)
• 1,000,000 = míñonu (< English million?)

The reason for the use of French borrowings rather than Carib or Arawak terms is unclear, but may have to do with their succinctness, as numbers in indigenous American languages, especially those above ten, tend to be longer and more cumbersome.^{[citation needed]}

Syntax

The

Garifuna is an agglutinative language.^[11]

Notes

Further reading

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

• "Garifuna (Black Carib)". Native Languages of the Americas. Retrieved 14 March 2007.
• Langworthy, Geneva (2002). "Language Planning in a Trans-National Speech Community". In Burnaby, Barbara; Reyhner, Jon (eds.). Indigenous Languages Across the Community (PDF). Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University. pp. 41–48. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 July 2013. Retrieved 14 March 2007.
• Munro, Pamela (1998). "The Garifuna gender system". In Hill, Jane H.; Mistry, P. J.; Campbell, Lyle (eds.). The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Mouton de Gruyter.
• Rodriguez, Nestor P. (1987). "Undocumented Central Americans in Houston: Diverse Populations". International Migration Review. 21 (1): 4–26.
  JSTOR 2546127
  .
• Suazo, Salvador (1994). Conversemos en garífuna (2nd ed.). Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras.
• Haurholm-Larsen, Steffen (2016). A Grammar of Garifuna (PhD thesis). University of Bern.
  doi:10.7892/boris.91473
  .

Garifuna language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• Garifuna Research Institute
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Garifuna version (sample text)
• A Caribbean Vocabulary Compiled in 1666 (lists of older Garifuna words) at Internet Archive
• Garifuna, Endangered Language Alliance