Tehuelche language

Tehuelche
Patagón
Native to	Argentina
Ethnicity	Tehuelche people
Native speakers	At least 1 fluent (2012)
Language family	Chonan Chon proper Continental Chon Tehuelche
Language codes
ISO 639-3	teh
Glottolog	tehu1242
ELP	Tehuelche
Map with approximate distributions of languages in Patagonia at the time of the Spanish conquest. Source: W. Adelaar (2004): The Andean Languages, Cambridge University Press.

Tehuelche (Aoniken, Inaquen, Gunua-Kena, Gununa-Kena) is one of the Chonan languages of Patagonia. Its speakers were nomadic hunters who occupied territory in present-day Chile, north of Tierra del Fuego and south of the Mapuche people. It is also known as Aonikenk or Aonek'o 'ajen.

The decline of the language started with the Araucanization of Patagonia, when many Tehuelche peoples adopted the Mapuche language as their main language. While being quite separate from each other, the Tehuelche were considerably influenced by these two other languages and cultures. This allowed the transference of morpho-syntactical elements into Tehuelche.[1] During the 19th and 20th centuries, Spanish became the dominant language as Argentina and Chile gained independence, and Spanish-speaking settlers took possession of Patagonia.

Classification

Main article: Chonan languages

Tehuelche belongs to the Chonan family together with Teushen, Ona (Selk'nam) and Haush. The latter two languages were spoken by tribes in northeast and far northeast Tierra del Fuego. They are extinct.

Phonology

Vowels

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

	Front	Central	Back
Mid	e eː		o oː
Open		a aː

Consonants

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

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	plain	p	t	tʃ	k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pˀ	tˀ	tʃˀ	kˀ	qˀ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ	ɢ
Fricatives			s	ʃ	x	χ
Approximant		w	l	j
Trill			r

Morphology

Pronoun

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

References

• Fernández Garay, Ana V. (1997): Testimonios de los últimos tehuelches. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires.(Spanish)
• Fernández Garay, Ana V. (1998): El tehuelche. Una lengua en vías de extinción. Valdivia: Universidad Austral de Chile [Anejos de Estudios Filológicos 15]. (Spanish)
• Fernández Garay, Ana V. (2004): Diccionario tehuelche-español / índice español-tehuelche. Leiden: University of Leiden [Indigenous Languages of Latin America 4].(Spanish)
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro (2005): Voces en el viento. Raíces lingüísticas de la Patagonia. Buenos Aires: Mondragón.(Spanish)
• Ana Fernandez Garay, La nominalizacion de lenguas indigenas de la Patagonia, Puebla, México,2006 (Spanish)