Djeoromitxí language

Djeoromitxi or Jabutí is an endangered Yabutian language that is spoken by only about fifty people in Rondônia, Brazil, at the headwaters of the Rio Branco.

Phonology

There is no tonal system in Djeoromitxí and accent is not contrastive. Morphophonological processes are rare.
Syllable structure follows a V pattern.

Consonants

The table below shows the consonant phonemes of Djeoromitxí according to Ribeiro and van der Voort.
Although Pires counts /b/ /d/ as distinct phonemes, Ribeiro and van der Voort count them as allophones of /m/ /n/ before oral vowels.
According to Pires, is an allophone of // before high and medium round vowels, and is an allophone of // following the high nasal vowel //.
While /ps/ and /bz/ only occur before /i/, they are contrastive with the other bilabial obstruents.
According to Ribeiro and van der Voort, /k/ is backed to before and often aspirated before /ə/ and /u/. They state that /p/ is realized as or before back vowels and .
When preceded by a personal prefix, or when starting the second element of a compound, /h/ becomes /r/. With some roots, /h/ can become /n/ in a similar manner.

Vowels

The tables below show the vowel phonemes of Djeoromitxí according to Ribeiro and van der Voort.
The accounts of Pires and Ribeiro and van der Voort basically agree on the vowel phonemes.

	Front	Central	Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open

	Front	Central	Back
Close
Open-mid
Open

According to Pires, is an allophone of // in free variation with after //.
Ribeiro and van der Voort state that /ʉ/ is often realized as .

Grammar

Djeoromitxí has nouns, verbs, adverbs and particles, with adjectives treated as intransitive verbs. Its syntax is noun-modifier and SOV or OVS in order.
The following examples demonstrate noun-modifier and SOV word order.

Pronouns and person markers

The following table shows Djeoromitxí pronominal forms.

	Pronoun	Possessive/Preposition	Intransitive subject	Transitive subject	Transitive object
1st person singular	hʉ	—	—	hʉ	—
2nd person	adʒɛ	a-	a-	adʒɛ	a-/adʒɛ
3rd person	na	i-/N	i-/na/N	na/N	i-/N
1st person plural	hirʉ	hi-	hi-	hirʉ	hi-
Impersonal	—	hi-	—	—	i-/ɛ-

The use of the forms is illustrated in the following examples: