Tehuelche language

Tehuelche is a nearly extinct Chon language spoken by four people in [Patagonia] out of an ethnic group of 200. They were originally nomadic hunters from Chile. It is also known as Aonikenk or Aonek'o 'ajen. The decline of the language started with the Araucanization of Patagonia, when many Tehuelche tribes adopted Mapudungun as main language. Later during the XIX and XX century Spanish replaced both as Argentina and Chile took possession of Patagonia.

Clasification

Tehuelche belongs to the Chon family, together with Teushen, Selk'nam and Haush.

Phonology

Vowels

Tehuelche has 3 vocalic qualities and they can be short or long (Fernandez 1988: 87-88)

	Front	Central	Back
Mid	e e:		o o:
Open		a a:

Consonants

Tehuelche has 25 consonantal phonemes. Stops can be simple, glotalized or voiced. (Fernández 1998: 88-89)

	labial	dental	palatal	velar	uvular	glotal
nasal	m	n
simple stop	p	t	č	k	q	ʔ
glottalized stop	p'	t'	č'	k'	q'
voiced stop	b	d		g	G
fricative		s	š	x	X
continuant			j	w
lateral		l
trill		r

Grammar

Pronoun

	Singular	Dual	Plural
1 person	ja:	okwa:	ošwa:
2 person	ma:	mkma:	mšma:
3 person	ta:	tkta:	tšta:

References

Fernández Garay, Ana V. (1997c): Testimonios de los últimos tehuelches. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Fernández Garay, Ana V. (1998a): El tehuelche. Una lengua en vías de extinción. Valdivia: Universidad Austral de Chile [Anejos de Estudios Filológicos 15].

Fernández Garay, Ana V. (2004b): Diccionario tehuelche-español / índice español-tehuelche. Leiden: University of Leiden [Indigenous Languages of Latin America 4].

Viegas Barros, J. Pedro (2005): Voces en el viento. Raíces lingüísticas de la Patagonia. Buenos Aires: Mondragón.

External links

• Tehuelche @ Ethnologue