Ese Ejja language

Ese Ejja, also known as Tiatinagua, is a Tacanan language of Bolivia and Peru. It is spoken by Ese Ejja people of all ages. Dialects are Guacanawa, Baguaja, Echoja, and possibly extinct Chama, Chuncho, Huanayo, Kinaki, and Mohino. Chunene is "similar" to Ese Ejja, though whether a dialect or a separate language is not clear.

Historical, social and cultural characteristics

Ese Ejja is spoken in the La Paz, Beni, and Pando departments of Bolivia on the Beni and Madre de Dios rivers; and in the Madre de Dios and Puno departments of Peru. According to Alexiades & Peluso, there are approximately 1,500 Ese Ejja, distributed among different communities in Peru and Bolivia. The Bolivian Ese Ejja are divided into two clans: the Quijati, around the Riberalta region; and the Hepahuatahe in the Rurenabaque region. Crevels & Muysken write that in Bolivia there were 518 Ese Ejja speakers, and therefore is an endangered language. Some names used to refer to the language are Ese'eha, Chama, and Warayo; Chama is a pejorative regional name, and Guarayo is also the name of a Tupí-Guaraní language group. In Peru, the Ese Ejja language is spoken along the Madre de Dios and Tambopata rivers and at their sources in three locations: Sonene, Palma Real, and Infierno. Ese Ejja is also seriously threatened in Peru, with 840 speakers in an ethnic group of the same size.

Phonology

Ese Ejja has 17 consonant phonemes and four vowels. A practical orthography is shown between angled brackets in the table below.
Ese Ejja has ejective consonants such as as well as voiceless implosives such as.

Nasal sounds may range to prenasalized stops in free variation in initial position, as well as be heard as voiced plosives in free variation. may also be heard as an allophone of in free variation.
is heard as when in between front vowels, and is heard as labialized when following. Elsewhere, it is most commonly heard as uvular or velar.
can be palatalized as in free variation.
may also be heard as voiced in free variation.
may also be heard as voiced in free variation.
may become palatalized as when before or between.
can also be heard as an ejective or a uvular among emphatic speech.

	Front	Central	Back
High
Mid
Low

Three diphthongs occur:,, and ; these are represented as,, and in the practical orthography to prevent confusion with vowel sequences.
Syllables have the structure V.