The Hodï language, also known as Yuwana (Yoana), Waruwaru, or Chikano (Chicano), is a small unclassified language

Unclassified language

Unclassified languages are languages whose genetic affiliation has not been established by means of historical linguistics. If this state of affairs continues after significant study of the language and efforts to relate it to other languages, as in the case of Basque, it is termed a language...

 of Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. Almost nothing is known of it; its several hundred speakers are monolingual hunter-gatherers.

Henley, Mattéi-Müller and Reid (1996) present evidence that it may be related to the Nadahup languages.

Phonology

The first phonological analysis is Vilera (1985).

Vowels

	oral			nasal
	front	central	back	front	central	back
close	i	ɨ	u	ĩ	ɨ̃	ũ
mid	e	ɘ	o	ẽ	ɘ͂	õ
open		a			ã

Consonants

	labial		alveolar		palatal		velar		labiovelar		glotal
	plain	asp.	plain	asp.	plain	asp.	plain	asp.	plain	asp.	plain	asp.
voiceless stops			t	ʰt	ç	ʰç	k	ʰk	kʷ	ʰkʷ	ʔ
voiced stops	b	ʰb	d	ʰd	ɟ	ʰɟ
fricatives												h
flaps			ɾ	ʰɾ
approximants	w	ʰw			j	ʰj

The voiced stops are realized as nasals [m n ɲ] between nasal vowels.

External links

• Alain Fabre 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: HOTI