Siona (also spelled Ceona or Zeona and also known as Bain Coca, Pioje, Pioche-Sioni, Ganteyabain, Ganteya, Koka and Kanú) is a Tucanoan language of Colombia and Ecuador. Ecuadorian Siona and Colombian Siona, as well as Secoya, have a high level of mutual intelligibility, but have some lexical, morphological, and phonological differences between them.

As of 2013, Siona is spoken by about 550 people.

Phonology

Vowels

There are 6 oral vowels and six nasal vowels. Only nasal vowels occur next to a nasal consonant /m/ or /n/.

Siona vowels
BackCentralFront
Highi ĩɨ ɨ̃u ũ
Midɛ æ̃o õ
Lowa ã

Consonants

There are two series of obstruent consonant. Both often produce a noticeable delay before the onset of the following vowel: the 'fortis' series (written p t č k kw s h hw) is aspirated, with a noisy transition to the vowel, while the 'lenis' series (written b d g gw ’ z), optionally voiced,[citation needed] is glottalized, with a silent transition to the vowel, which in turn tends to be laryngealized. The glottal stop is faint, and noticeable primarily in the laryngealizing effect it has on adjacent vowels.

Siona consonants
bilabialalveolarprepalatalvelarlabio-velarglottal
Plosivefortispʰt̪ʰtʃʰkʰkʷʰ
lenisbˀɖˀ ~ ɾɡˀɡʷˀʔ
Fricativefortissh ; hʷ
lenissˀ
Nasalmn
Semivowelj ~ ɲw

/ɖˀ/ is realized as [ɾ] between vowels. /j/ is realized as [ɲ] next to nasal vowels.

Stress

Stress is obligatory on all verb stems, root words, and some suffixes. It disappears when the syllable is not the nucleus of a phonological word. Some monosyllabic morphemes have both stressed and unstressed forms. Although the position of stress within a word is not contrastive, vocalic and consonantal allophony depends on whether a syllable is stressed. Initial stressed vowels followed by unstressed vowels are long and have a falling tone.

External links