Puelche language

Puelche
Gününa Küne (Gennaken)
Spoken in Argentina
Native speakers 5[1]  (date missing)
Language family
Chonan ?
  • Puelche–Het ?
    • Puelche
Language codes
ISO 639-3 pue
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Puelche is an extinct or nearly extinct language spoken by the Puelche people in the Pampas region of Argentina. The language is also known as Gününa Küne, Gennaken (Guenaken), Pehuenche, Northern Tehuelche, Gününa Yajich, Ranquelche, and Pampa, and may have five speakers, according to Ethnologue, if not it has gone extinct.[1]

Contents

Classification

Puelche has long been considered a language isolate. Based on very limited evidence, Viegas Barros (1992) suggests that Puelche might be closely related to the language of the Querandí, one of the Het peoples, and Viegas Barros (2005) that it is related to the Chon languages.[2] Further afield, inclusion in a putative Macro-Jibaro family has been posited.

Phonology

Vowels

Puelche has 7 vowels:[3]

Front Back
Unrounded Unrounded Rounded
Close i u
Close-mid e ɤ o
Open-mid ʌ
Open a

Consonants

Puelche has 25 consonants:[3]

Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive Voiceless p t k q ʔ
Ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ
Voiced b d ɡ
Affricate Voiceless t͡s t͡ʃ
Ejective t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ
Fricative Central s ʃ x h
Lateral ɬ
Approximant l j w

Puelche has an additional phoneme /r/, but its phonetic properties are badly described.[3]

Bibliography

Casamiquela, Rodolfo M. (1983). Nociones de gramática del gününa küne. Paris: French National Centre for Scientific Research. 
Adelaar, Willem (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7. 

External links

References

  1. ^ a b Ethnologue
  2. ^ Campbell, Lyle. (in preparation) "The classification of South American languages. In Campbell & Grondona (eds.), South America. Mouton de Gruyter.
  3. ^ a b c Clairis, Christos (1997). "Lingüística Fueguina 1997". Onomázein 2: 421–450.