Chono language

Wikipedia

Chono
Native toChile
RegionChonos Archipelago, Chiloé Archipelago
EthnicityChono people
Extinct1875[citation needed]
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologchon1248

Chono is a poorly attested extinct language of confusing classification. It is attested primarily from an 18th-century catechism,[1] which is not translated into Spanish. Various placenames in Chiloé Archipelago have Chono etymologies, despite the main indigenous language of the archipelago at the arrival of the Spanish being Veliche.[2]

Classification

Campbell (2012) concludes that the language called Chono or Wayteka or Wurk-wur-we by Llaras Samitier (1967) is spurious, with the source material being a list of mixed and perhaps invented vocabulary.[3]

Viegas Barros, who postulates a relationship between Kawesqar and Yaghan, believes that 45% of the Chono vocabulary and grammatical forms correspond to one of those languages, though it is not close to either.[4]

Glottolog concludes that "There are lexical parallels with Mapuche as well as Qawesqar, ... but the core is clearly unrelated." They characterize Chono as a "language isolate", which corresponds to an unclassified language in other classifications.[citation needed]

Phonology

The phonology of Chono can be tentatively reconstructed in part from the data provided by Basauni (1975).[5] Syllables are frequently, but not necessarily, closed. There are few consonant clusters but frequent vowel clusters.[6]

Consonants

The consonant table shows the IPA representation as given by Adelaar (2004), with symbols that differ in angle brackets.[7]

Conosnants[8]
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ny ŋ
Plosive/Affricate voiceless p t t͡ɕ č k
voiced b g
Fricative f z[a] s x h
Approximant w j
Lateral l ly
  1. z may have been realized as [θ], [ts], [z], or [s], among other possible realizations.

Vowels

Vowels[8]
FrontCentralBack
High iu
Mid eo
Low a

In addition to the five monophthongs, Chono appears to have had eight diphthongs, which Adelaar represents as a vowel and a glide: aw, ew, ow, ay, yu, wa, we, and wi.[8]

References

  1. es:Doctrina para los viejos chonos  (in Spanish) via Wikisource. (published in Bausani 1975)
  2. Ibar Bruce, Jorge (1960). "Ensayo sobre los indios Chonos e interpretación de sus toponimías". Anales de la Universidad de Chile (in Spanish). 117: 61–70.
  3. Campbell, Lyle (2012). "Classification of the indigenous languages of South America". In Grondona, Verónica; Campbell, Lyle (eds.). The Indigenous Languages of South America. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 59–166. ISBN 9783110255133.
  4. Adelaar 2004, p. 553.
  5. Bausani 1975.
  6. Adelaar 2004, pp. 564–565.
  7. Adelaar 2004, pp. xviii–xix.
  8. 1 2 3 Adelaar 2004, p. 565.

Works cited

  • Adelaar, Willem (2004). The Language of the Andes. with Pieter C. Muysken. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486852. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
  • Bausani, Alessandro (1975). "Nuovi materiali sulla lingua Chono". In Cerulli, Ernesta; Della Ragione, Gilda (eds.). Atti del XL Congresso Internazionale degli Americanisti (Rome-Genoa, 3–12 September 1972). Vol. 3: Linguistica – Folklore – Storia americana – Sociologia. Genoa: Tilgher. pp. 107–116.