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 native ...
in the
Pampas 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. Based on very limited evidence, Viegas Barros (1992) suggests that Puelche might be closely related to the language of the
Querandí
The Querandí were one of the Het peoples, indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina; specifically, they were the eastern Didiuhet. The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume animal fat ...
, 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 th ...
.
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
vowels:
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
:
:
See also
*
Boreal Pehuelche
References
External links
Gününa Küne language dictionary online from IDS(select simple or advanced browsing)
WALS: ''Puelche''Gününa Küne(
Intercontinental Dictionary Series)
{{Languages of Argentina
Languages of Argentina
Chonan languages
Extinct languages of South America
Languages extinct in the 1930s
Language isolates of South America