Ayoreo language

Ayoreo is a Zamucoan language spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia. It is also known as Morotoco, Moro, Ayoweo, Ayoré, and Pyeta Yovai. However, the name "Ayoreo" is more common in Bolivia, and "Morotoco" in Paraguay. It is spoken by the Ayoreo people, an indigenous ethnic group traditionally living on a combined hunter-gatherer and farming lifestyle.

Ayoreo
Native to	Paraguay, Bolivia
Region	Chaco, Alto Paraguay departments (Paraguay); Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia)
Ethnicity	Ayoreo people
Native speakers	4,700 (2012)[1]
Language family	Zamucoan Ayoreo
Dialects	Tsiracua
Official status
Official language in	Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ayo
Linguist List	qro Guarañoca
Glottolog	ayor1240  Ayoreo zamu1245  Zamuco
ELP	Ayoreo

Classification

Ayoreo is classified as a Zamucoan language, along with Chamacoco. Extinct Guarañoca may have been a dialect.

Geographic distribution

Ayoreo is spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia, with 3,100 speakers total, 1,700 of whom live in Paraguay and 1,400 in Bolivia. Within Paraguay, Ayoreo is spoken in the Chaco Department and the northern parts of the Alto Paraguay Department. In Bolivia, it is spoken in the Cordillera Province, in the Santa Cruz Department.

Phonology

Bertinetto (2009) reports that Ayoreo has the 5 vowels /a, e, i, o, u/, which appear both as oral and nasal.^[2]

Consonants^[3]

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Affricate				t͡ʃ
Fricative			s			h
Nasal	voiceless	m̥	n̥	ɲ̥
	voiced	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant			ɹ	j	w

/j/ can also be heard as [dʒ].^[4]

Grammar

The prototypical constituent order is subject-verb-object, as seen in the following examples:^[5]

Sérgio

Sérgio

ch-ingo

3-show

caratai

jaguar

aroi

skin

tome

to

Ramon.

Ramon

Sérgio ch-ingo caratai aroi tome Ramon.

Sérgio 3-show jaguar skin to Ramon

‘Sérgio showed the jaguar’s skin to Ramon’.

Enga

COORD

ore

3P

ch-ijnoque

3-carry

Víctor

Víctor

aja

towards

señóra

señora

Emília

Emília

i-guijnai.

house

Enga ore ch-ijnoque Víctor aja señóra Emília i-guijnai.

COORD 3P 3-carry Víctor towards señora Emília house

‘And they carried Víctor to Señora Emília’s house’.

Ayoreo is a fusional language.^[6]

Verbs agree with their subjects, but there is no tense-inflection.^{[7][page needed]} Consider the following paradigm, which has prefixes marking person and suffixes marking number:^[8]

y-aca	I plant
b-aca	you plant
ch-aca	he, she, they plant
y-aca-go	we plant
uac-aca-y	you (pl) plant

When the verb root contains a nasal, there are nasalized variants of the agreement affixes:

ñ-ojne	I spread
m-ojne	you spread
ch-ojne	he, she, they spread
ñ-ojne-ngo	we spread
uac-ojne-ño	you (pl) spread

Ayoreo is a mood-prominent language.^[6] Nouns can be divided into possessable and non-possessable; possessor agreement is expressed through a prefixation.^{[9][page needed]} The syntax of Ayoreo is characterized by the presence of para-hypotactical structures.^{[10][page needed]}