Puelche was a language formerly spoken by the

Puelche people The Gününa küna, or sometimes, Puelche ( Mapudungun: ''pwelche'', "people of the east") are indigenous peoples living east of the Andes Mountains in Chile and Southwest Argentina. They spoke the Puelche language. The name "Puelche" was not nati ...

in the

Pampa The Pampas (from the qu, pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Brazil ...

s region of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. The language is also known as ''Gününa Küne'', Gennaken (Guenaken), Northern Tehuelche, ''Gününa Yajich'', Ranquelche, and Pampa.

Classification

Puelche has long been considered a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

. 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 The Chonan languages are a family of indigenous American languages which were spoken in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. Two Chon languages are well attested: Selk'nam (or Ona), spoken by the people of the same name who occupied territory in the ...

. Further afield, inclusion in a putative

Macro-Jibaro The Macro-Jibaro proposal, also known as ''(Macro-)Andean'', is a language proposal of Morris Swadesh and other historical linguists. The two families, Jivaroan and Cahuapanan are most frequently linked, the isolates less often. Documentation ...

family has been posited.

Phonology

Vowels

Puelche has 7

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

s: A short sounding // is realized as [].

Consonants

Puelche has 25 consonants:Barros, J. Viegas. Un nuevo análisis fonológico del gününa yajüch. CONICET-Universidad de Buenos Aires It is not clear if there is a uvular ejective stop .

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Gennaken. :

Bibliography

: :

References

External links

Gününa Küne language dictionary online from IDS
(select simple or advanced browsing)
WALS: ''Puelche''

Gününa Küne
(

Intercontinental Dictionary Series The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An ...

) {{Languages of Argentina Languages of Argentina Chonan languages Extinct languages of South America Languages extinct in the 1930s Language isolates of South America