| Oro Win | |
|---|---|
| Oro Towati' | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Rondônia |
| Ethnicity | 55 Oro Win (1998)1 |
Native speakers | 5 (2011)1 |
Chapacuran
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | orw |
| Glottolog | orow1243 |
| ELP | Orowari |
 Oro Win is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
Oro Win is a moribund Chapacuran language spoken along the upper stretches of the Pacaás Novos River in Brazil.2 As of 2010, there were only six known speakers of Oro Win in Brazil, and all of them were over 50 years of age.3 However, other reports dictate that there are 12 speakers as of 2015, and there are efforts to increase use of Oro Win among the community.45
Phonology
Oro Win is one of only five languages known to make use of a voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop, [t͡ʙ̥].
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | |
| Near-close | ʏ | |
| Close-mid | e | o |
| Open | a |
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | t̪ʙ | t | k | ʔ | |
| Fricative | ɸ | s | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||
| Semivowel | j | w |
Vocabulary
[tʙ̥otʙ̥ok inan] 'I walk on logs'
[kotʙ̥ok inan] 'I start a motor'
[katʙ̥ʉ na] 'It is an owl'
[tʙ̥untʙʉ na] 'It is a helicopter'
[tʙ̥um] 'small boy'7
References
References
- Oro Win at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- "Oro Win - Indigenous Peoples in Brazil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2025-05-30.
- Birchall, Joshua. "Oro Win Language". Programa Povos Indígenas no Brasil do Instituto. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
- "Did you know Orowari is critically endangered?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2025-04-21.
- Tondineli, Patrícia Goulart (2021). (Re)vitalizar línguas minorizadas e/ou ameaçadas: teorias, metodologias, pesquisas e experiências (PDF) (1 ed.). EDITORA DA UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE RONDÔNIA - EDUFRO. doi:10.47209/978-65-87539-61-4 (inactive 19 August 2025). ISBN 978-65-87539-61-4.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of August 2025 (link) - Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang, Will (2012). "Phonological inventory of Oro Win". The South American Phonological Inventory Database (version 1.1.3 ed.). Berkeley: University of California: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Digital Resource.
- "Word List for Oro Win". archive.phonetics.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
Bibliography
Bibliography
- Everett, Daniel; & Kern, B. (1996). Wari’: The Pacaas Novos language of western Brazil. London: Routledge.
- Ladefoged, Peter; Everett, Daniel. (1996). The status of phonetic rarities. Language, 72 (4), 794–800.
External links
External links
- Oro Win: Povos Indígenas no Brasil - Instituto Socioambiental
- Linguistics Professor Discovers New Language in Brazilian Rain Forest. Pittsburgh University Times v. 27 n. 4 (1994). (offline, but see this copy)
- UCLA Phonetics Lab Data – recordings of [t͡ʙ̥] in Oro Win.