Tehuelche language

Tehuelche (Aoniken, Inaquen, Gunua-Kena, Gununa-Kena) is one of the Chonan languages of Patagonia. Its speakers, the Tehuelche people, 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 Aonekkenk or Aonekko ʼaʼien ([aonekʼo ʔaʔjen]).

Tehuelche
Patagón
aonekko ʼaʼien
Pronunciation	[aonekʼo ʔaʔjen]
Native to	Argentina
Region	Santa Cruz
Ethnicity	Tehuelche
Extinct	2019, with the death of Dora Manchado[1]
Revival	few learners (2012)[2]
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.
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The decline of the language started with the Mapuche invasion in the north, that was then followed by the occupation of Patagonia by the Argentine and Chilean states and state-facilitated genocide. Tehuelche was considerably influenced by other languages and cultures, in particular Mapudungun (the language of the Mapuche). This allowed the transference of morpho-syntactic elements into Tehuelche.^[3] 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. Because of these factors the language began dying out. In 1983/84 there were 29 speakers, but by the year 2000 there were only 4 speakers left, and by 2012 only 2. In 2019 the last speaker died. As of 2000, the Tehuelche ethnic group numbered 200. Today many members of the Tehuelche ethnic group have limited knowledge of the language and are doing their best to ensure language revival, as Tehuelche is still a very important symbol for the group of people who identify themselves as Tehuelche.^[4][5]

In spite of the death of Dora Manchado in 2019, the language has been documented (from her), recuperated and revitalized by various groups of Aonekkenks, with the collaboration of a group of linguists and anthropologists, that have made various studies and academic works about this language.^[5][4]

Classification

Main article: Chonan languages

Tehuelche belongs to the Chonan family together with Teushen, Selkʼnam (Ona) and Haush. The latter two languages, spoken by tribes in northeast and far northeast Tierra del Fuego, have different statuses of documentation and linguistic revitalization by their corresponding communities.

Dialects

Mason (1950) lists dialects as:^[6]

• Tehuelche
  • Northern
    • Payniken
    • Poya
  • Southern
    • Inaken

History and demographics

The northern Tehuelche were conquered and later assimilated by the Mapuche during the Araucanization of Patagonia. Some 1.7 million Mapuche continue to live in Chile and southwest Argentina. Further south they traded peacefully with y Wladfa, the colony of Welsh settlers. Some Tehuelche learnt Welsh and left their children with the settlers for their education. A solid photographic record was made of this people. However, they were later nearly exterminated in the late 19th-century government-sponsored genocides of Patagonia.^[7] Of some 5000 speakers in 1900, as of 2005^[update] there were about 20 speakers left. Tehuelche is now extinct as of 2019.

Phonology

Vowels

Tehuelche has 3 vocalic qualities which can be short or long.^[8]

	Front	Central	Back
Mid	e eː		o oː
Open		a aː

Consonants

Tehuelche has 25 consonantal phonemes. Stops can be plain, glottalized or voiced.^[9]

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	plain	p	t	tʃ	k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	qʼ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ	ɢ
Fricative			s	ʃ	x	χ
Approximant		w	l	j
Trill			r

Morphology

Pronoun

	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person	ia	okwa	oshwa
2nd person	ma꞉	mkma	mshma
3rd person	ta꞉	tkta	tshta

Noun

Verb

Alignment

Tehuelche is a nominative–accusative language. Strangely, it marks the nominative but not the accusative, a phenomenon only found in 6 languages worldwide.^[10]