Pemon language

Not to be confused with Pémono language.

Pemon
Arecuna
Ingarikó, Kapon
Native to	Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana
Ethnicity	Pemon
Native speakers	unknown (6,000 cited 1990–2006)
Language family	Cariban Venezuelan Carib Pemóng–Panare Pemóng Pemon
Dialects	Camaracoto
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aoc
Glottolog	pemo1248

The Pemon language, or Arekuna, is a Native American language of the Cariban family spoken by some 30,000 Pemon people, in Venezuela's Southeast, particularly in the Canaima National Park, in the Roraima State of Brazil and in Guyana.

It is one of several closely related languages called Ingarikó and Kapong.

Camaracoto may be a distinct language.

Typology

The Pemon language's syntax type is SOV with alternation to OVS.

Writing

Pemon was an oral language until the 20th century. Then efforts were made to produce dictionaries and grammars, primarily by Catholic missionaries, specially Armellada and Gutiérrez Salazar. The Latin alphabet has been used, adding diacritic signs to represent some phonemes not existing in Spanish.

Phonology

Vowels

Pemon has the following vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Open-mid	e	ɵ	o
Open		a

There are still texts only using Spanish characters, without distinctive characters for /o/ or /ɵ/.

Consonants

b, ch, d, k, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, t, v, w, y

Grammar

Pronouns in Pemon are:

Pemon	English
yuré	I, me
amäre	you (singular)
muere, mesere	he, she
urekon	we
ina	we (exclusive)
amärenokon	you (plural)
ichamonan	they, them

External links

• Introducción al pemón (Spanish)
• Pemon for travellers
• General information about the Pemon language

Literature

• Gutiérrez Salazar, Msr Mariano: Gramática Didáctica de la Lengua Pemón. Caracas 2001. ISBN 980-244-282-8.
• De Armellada, Fray Cesáreo y Olza, Jesús,s.j.: Gramática de la lengua pemón (morfosintaxis) (1999) Caracas, Publicaciones Ucab, Vicariato Apostólico del Caroní y Universidad Católica del Táchira. 289 pages.