Garifuna language

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Garifuna
Spoken in:	Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua
Region:	Northern Caribbean coast of Central America from Belize to Nicaragua
Total speakers:	approx. 100,000
Language family:	Arawakan  Maipurean   Northern Maipurean    Maritime     Ta-Maipurean      Iñeri       Garifuna
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	cai
ISO 639-3:	cab
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Garifuna is an Arawakan language spoken in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize by the Garifuna people. Spoken by a majority of Afro-Hondurans.

A French-based creole language spoken in Livingston, Guatemala is also called "Garifuna".

One interesting feature of Garifuna is a vocabulary split between terms used only by men and terms used only by women. This does not however affect the entire vocabulary but when it does, the terms used by men generally come from Carib and those used by women come from Arawak.

[edit] References

• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. "Garifuna". Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
• Garifuna (Black Carib). Native Languages of the Americas. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
• Langworthy, Geneva (2002). "Language Planning in a Trans-National Speech Community" (PDF). In Indigenous Languages Across the Community, eds. Barbara Burnaby and Jon Reyhner. Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University, pp. 41-48.
• A Caribbean Vocabulary Compiled in 1666. The United Confederation of Taíno People. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
• Palacio, Clifford J.. Online Garifuna Lessons. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
• Josephs, K. Marie. Garifuna. Cariblanguage.org. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.