In this paper, some lexicon of the Cofán language, spoken in northeastern Ecuador and southern Colombia, is etymologized as Barbacoan loanwords. The suggestions are described in phonological and semantic terms. The correspondences do...
moreIn this paper, some lexicon of the Cofán language, spoken in northeastern Ecuador and southern Colombia, is etymologized as Barbacoan loanwords. The suggestions are described in phonological and semantic terms. The correspondences do represent borrowings, rather than being remnants of any tentative genealogic affinity between the two, because a brief grammatical comparison shows practically no similarities whatsoever. Further (Pre-Colonial?) contacts appear to have produced some Colorado (Barbacoan) borrowings also into Siona, and, curiously, what appears to be specific Waorani borrowings into Cofán as well as Cofán borrowings limited only to the neighboring Barbacoan language of Awa Pit. Further, a few borrowings are also to be found limited only to pairs of the above languages (Cofán, Siona, Waorani or the Barbacoan languages, all spoken close to each other). Furthermore, one suggested rare phonological Sprachbund feature shared between Awa Pit and Cofán consists of the voiceless high vowels that both languages use.
[Draft paper version 4]
