Cocopa
Encyclopedia : C : CO : COC : Cocopa
Cocopa is a Native American tribe that emigated from Baja California, Mexico, and settled on the lower reaches of the Colorado River. They are a Yuman people. About 600 members live on the 6000 acre (24 km²) Cocopah Reservation southwest of Yuma, Arizona, USA. There is a casino and bingo hall. Another Yuman tribe, the Quechan, lives in the adjacent Ft. Yuma Reservation.
Language
Cocopa is a Delta Yuman language of the Yuman-Cochimí language family spoken by Cocopa peoples. It is still being learned by children.
Sounds
Consonants
Cocopa has 21 consonants:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labial | |||||||
| Stop | p | t | ʈ | k | kʷ | ʔ | ||
| Affricate | ʧ | |||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
| Fricative | central | s | ʂ | ʃ | x | xʷ | ||
| lateral | ɬʲ | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Approximant | central | j | w | |||||
| lateral | l | lʲ | ||||||
- /r/ is usually a trill [r] but sometimes is a flap [ɾ].
- /ʧ, ɲ, ʃ/ are postalveolar (palato-alveolar). /lʲ, ɬʲ/ are palatalized alveolar consonants.
- /ɬʲ/ is usually palatalized but unlike /lʲ/ it does not contrast with a non-palatalized [ɬ].
Vowels
Cocopa has 4 vowels.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i / iː | u / uː |
| Non-High | e / eː | a / aː |
Cocopa has both short and long vowels.
The Cocopa syllable:
- (C)(C)(C)V(ː)(C)(C)
- Word-initial two-consonant clusters usually consist of a fricative plus another consonant, e.g. /sp, ʂm, ʃp, xʧ/. Rarer two-consonant clusters start with a lateral or a stop consonant, e.g. /lʧ, ɬʲʧ, ps, ʧp/.
- Three-consonant clusters are rare, recorded examples include /pxk, pxkʷ, spx/.
Grammar
External links
- http://www.cocopah.com/
Bibliography
- Crawford, James M. (1970). Cocopa baby talk. International Journal of American linguistics, 36, 9-13.
- Crawford, James M. (1978). More on Cocopa baby talk. International Journal of American linguistics, 44, 17-23.
- Crawford, James M. (1989). Cocopa dictionary. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 114). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-5200-9749-1.
- Crawford, James M. (1983). Cocopa texts. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 100). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-5200-9652-5.
- Crawford, James M. (1998). Classificatory verbs in Cocopa. In L. Hinton & P. Munro (Eds.), American Indian languages: Description and theory (pp. 5-9). Berkeley: University of California.
- Kelly, William H. (1977). Cocopa ethnography. Anthropological papers of the University of Arizona (No. 29). Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-0496-2.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Wares, Alan C. (1968). A comparative study of Yuman consonantism. Janua linguarum, Series practica (No. 57). The Hauge: Mouton.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.