Ona (Aona), also known as Selk'nam (Shelknam), is a language that is spoken by the
Selk'nam people
The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one of the last native groups in South America to be enco ...
in
Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego
Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (English: ''Big Island of the Land of Fire'') also formerly ''Isla de Xátiva''South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
.
Part of the
Chonan 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 th ...
of
Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...
, Selk'nam is almost extinct, due both to the late 19th-century
Selk'nam genocide
The Selk'nam genocide was the genocide of the Selk'nam people, one of three indigenous tribes populating the Tierra del Fuego in South America, from the second half of the 19th to the early 20th century. The genocide spanned a period of betwe ...
by
European immigrants, high fatalities due to disease and disruption of traditional society. One source states that the last fluent native speakers died in the 1980s,
A
Radboud University
Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century D ...
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
worked with speaker Herminia Vera-Ona, who died in 2014, to write a reference grammar of the language.
Classification
Within the Southern Chon language family, Selk'nam is closest to
Haush
The Haush or Manek'enk were an indigenous people who lived on the Mitre Peninsula of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. They were related culturally and linguistically to the Ona or Selk'nam people who also lived on the Isla Grande de Tierra ...
, another language spoken on the island of Tierra del Fuego.
There is speculation that Chon together with the
Moseten languages, a small group of languages in Bolivia, form part of a
Moseten-Chonan language family. Another proposal is, that it is related to the
Pano-Tacanan languages
Pano-Tacanan (also Pano-Takana, Pano-Takánan, Pano-Tacana, Páno-Takána) is a proposed family of languages spoken in Peru, western Brazil, Bolivia and northern Paraguay. There are two close-knit branches, Panoan and Tacanan (Adelaar & Muysken ...
.
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
classifies Selk'nan as an
Amerind language of the Southern Andinan group.
History
The
Selk'nam people
The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one of the last native groups in South America to be enco ...
, also known as the Ona'', are an
indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
who inhabited the northeastern part of the archipelago of
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...
for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. They were nomads known as "foot-people," as they did their hunting on land, rather than being seafarers.
The last full-blooded Selk'nam,
Ángela Loij, died in 1974. They were one of the last aboriginal groups in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
to be reached by Europeans. Their language, believed to be part of the
Chonan family, is considered extinct as the last native speakers died in the 1980s. Currently, Selk'nam communities are revitalizing the language. A man of mixed Selk'nam and
Mapuche
The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...
ancestry, Joubert Yanten Gomez (indigenous name: Keyuk) has successfully taught himself the language.
Phonology
Based on available data, Selk'nam seems to have had 3 vowels and 23 consonants.
[
Selk'nam has three vowels: .
]
Grammar
The Ona language is an object–verb–subject language (OVS), this is a rare word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
(only 1% of languages use it as their default word order). There are only two word classes in Selk'nam: nouns and verbs.
See also
* List of endangered languages
Lists of endangered languages are mainly based on the definitions used by UNESCO. In order to be listed, a language must be classified as "endangered" in a cited academic source. Researchers have concluded that in less than one hundred years, alm ...
* Languages of Argentina
Spanish is the language that is predominantly understood and spoken as a first, or second language by nearly all of the population of Argentina. According to the latest estimations, the population is currently greater than 45 million.
English ...
* Languages of Chile
References
External links
*Guillermo Latorre
Sustrato y superestrato multilingües en la toponimia del extremo sur de Chile
Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades de la Universidad Austral de Chile
WALS
Selk'nam dictionary online
(select simple or advanced browsing).
Selknam
( Intercontinental Dictionary Series)
{{Languages of Chile
Chonan languages
Extinct languages of South America
Fuegian languages
Object–verb–subject languages
Selk'nam people
Languages of Argentina
Languages of Chile