Baré language

Baré
Baré
Barawana, Mitua
Native to	Venezuela, Brazil
Ethnicity	16,516 Baré people (2011–2014)
Native speakers	2 (2012)
Language family	Arawakan Northern Upper Amazon Central (Orinoco) Baré; ; ; ;
Dialects	Ihini; Arihini; Mandawaka †;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bae
Glottolog	bare1276
ELP	Baré

Baré (Barawana) is a nearly extinct Arawakan language of Venezuela and Brazil. It is spoken by two of the Baré people, as of 2012;² the rest have switched to Nheengatu, a Tupian language, Spanish, or Portuguese. It is closely related to a number of extinct languages, such as Guinau and Mandawaca.

History

Bare was one of the most widely spoken languages in the upper Rio Negro around the 19th to 20th centuries. In fact, the name "Bare", along with "Baria" and "Barauna", was used as a generic term for all Indigenous peoples of the region beginning in the early 19th century. Between 1908 and 1921, many Indigenous people migrated from Venezuela to Brazil. It is implied from historical descriptions that the Bare were acculturated early on, leading to the replacement of Bare with the local lingua franca Nheengatu, and later on by Spanish and Portuguese. As of 1988, only 19 people in Venezuela and 4 in Brazil could speak Bare, all of them "well over fifty". The last fluent speaker in Brazil, Candelário da Silva, died on February 2, 1993.³^: 3

Classification

Terrence Kaufman (1994) considered Baré proper, as well as the extinct and closely related Arawakan languages Guinau and Marawá, to be distinct languages;⁴^: 58 Alexandra Aikhenvald (1999), dialects of a single language.⁵

Dialects

Two principal subdivisions are recognized within Bare, Ihini 'the ones from there' and Arihini 'the ones from here'. According to a Baré speaker, the extinct Mandawaca language was mutually intelligible with Baré.³

Phonology

Vowels

Four vowels are present in Bare:³^: 5

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e
Open		a

Bare also has four diphthongs, being aw, ay, ew, and ey.³^: 6

Consonants

20 consonant phonemes occur in Bare.³^: 5

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t		k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d		(g)
Affricate				t͡ʃ
Fricative			s			h
Flap			ɾ
Nasal	aspirated	m̥	n̥
Nasal	unaspirated	m	n
Sonorant	aspirated				w̥
Sonorant	unaspirated			j	w

Aspirated consonants are mostly restricted at the beginning of a word or morpheme. They can be intrinsically aspirated, or derived from phonological processes, and can be realized as unaspirated in unstressed syllables. Unaspirated stops can aso be realized as unaspirated word- or morpheme-initial position. /tʰ/ is rare and never derived. In stressed syllables, /t͡ʃ/ can be aspirated as well. Before the vowel /i/, /t/ can be retroflexed to /ʈ/. In some dialects, these two allophones are phonemic.³^: 5–6

Phonotactics

The basic syllable structure in Bare is (C)V(N). (C)VN syllables are reduced to CV in rapid speech.³^: 6

Vowel harmony

Bare exhibits translaryngeal vowel harmony.³^: 6

References

"Baré - Povos Indígenas no Brasil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2025-11-07.
Crevels, Mily (2012-01-13), Campbell, Lyle; Grondona, Verónica (eds.), "Language endangerment in South America: The clock is ticking", The Indigenous Languages of South America, DE GRUYTER, pp. 167–234, doi:10.1515/9783110258035.167, ISBN 978-3-11-025513-3, retrieved 2025-11-03{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡ (1995). Bare. Languages of the world/materials 100. München; Newcastle: Lincom Europa. ISBN 978-3-89586-050-8.
Moseley, Christopher; Asher, R. E.; Tait, Mary (1994), Atlas of the world's languages, London ; New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-01925-5
Dixon, Robert M. W.; Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡, eds. (1999). The Amazonian languages (PDF). Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57021-3.

[1] "Baré - Povos Indígenas no Brasil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2025-11-07.

[:1-2] Crevels, Mily (2012-01-13), Campbell, Lyle; Grondona, Verónica (eds.), "Language endangerment in South America: The clock is ticking", The Indigenous Languages of South America, DE GRUYTER, pp. 167–234, doi:10.1515/9783110258035.167, ISBN 978-3-11-025513-3, retrieved 2025-11-03{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)

[:0-3] Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡ (1995). Bare. Languages of the world/materials 100. München; Newcastle: Lincom Europa. ISBN 978-3-89586-050-8.

[4] Moseley, Christopher; Asher, R. E.; Tait, Mary (1994), Atlas of the world's languages, London ; New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-01925-5

[5] Dixon, Robert M. W.; Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡, eds. (1999). The Amazonian languages (PDF). Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57021-3.

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