Páez

Language code

pbb

Location

2°24'18"N 76°36'29"W

Family

Isolate

Consonants	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Aspirated stop/affricate	pʰ	tʰ tʲʰ tsʰ tsʲʰ		kʰ
Plain stop/affricate	p pʲ	t tʲ ts tsʲ		k kʲ
Prenasalized stop	mp mpʲ mɸʲ	nt ntʲ ns nsʲ		ŋk
Fricative	ɸʲ	s sʲ		x xʲ
Nasal	m	nʰ n nʲ
Approximant			j	w
Lateral		l lʲ

Vowels	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ ḭ ḭ̃ iː ĩː		u ũ ṵ ṵ̃ uː ũː
Mid	e ẽ ḛ ḛ̃ eː ẽː
Low		a ã a̰ ã̰ aː ãː

Suprasegmental

None

Bibliography

Rojas Curieux, Tulio Enrique. 1998. La lengua páez: una visión de su gramática. Colombia: Ministerio de Cultura.

Jung, Ingrid. 2008. Gramática del páez o nasa yuwe: Descripción de una lengua indígena de Colombia. München: LINCOM Europe.

Notes

Jung (2008: 37) analyzes vowel length as phonemic, commenting that it may not be phonemic in all dialects. Rojas Curieux (1998: 78-79) notes a few instances of long vowels but does not analyze vowel length as phonemic. The aspirated vowels of Rojas Curieux (1998) correspond in at least a few words to a vowel followed by the fricative /x/ in Jung (2008). Aspirated vowels are therefore not included in the phoneme inventory here.