Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz is a Mataco-Guaicuru language of Argentina and Bolivia. Speakers are concentrated in northern parts of
Chaco,
Formosa,
Salta
Salta () is the capital and largest city in the Argentine province of the same name. With a population of 618,375 according to the 2010 census, it is also the 7th most-populous city in Argentina. The city serves as the cultural and economic ce ...
,
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.
Geography
There are three main areas in Jujuy:
...
s, as well as west of Toba, the upper
Bermejo River
The Bermejo River (Spanish, Río Bermejo) is a river in South America that flows from Bolivia to the Paraguay River in Argentina. The river is generally called Bermejo in spite of its different names along its way, but it also has its own Nativ ...
valley, and
Pilcomayo River
Pilcomayo (in Hispanicized spelling) (Quechua Pillkumayu or Pillku Mayu, ''pillku'' red, ''mayu'' river, "red river", Guarani Ysyry Araguay ) is a river in central South America. At long, it is the longest western tributary of the Paraguay River ...
. The language is also called ''Mataco Vejoz'' and ''Vejos''.
The Wichí languages are predominantly
suffixing and
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
; verbal words have between 2 and 15 morphemes. Alienable and inalienable
possession is distinguished. The phonological inventory is large, with simple,
glottalized
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consona ...
and
aspirated stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
s and
sonorants. The number of
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 varies with the language (five or six).
Phonology
* // is heard as after palatal consonants.
* // is heard as when preceding uvular consonants.
* /, / sounds can be heard as before uvular consonants.
* // can be heard as in syllable-final position.
See also
*
Wichí Lhamtés Nocten
Wichí Lhamtés Nocten, or Weenhayek, is a Wichí language primarily spoken in Bolivia, where an estimated 1,810 Wichí people spoke it in 1994. An additional one hundred people spoke the language in Argentina in 1994. In Bolivia, the language is ...
*
Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay
Notes
External links
Thathamet: Thatathyaj Thaye Thatenek(1926) Portions of the Book of Common Prayer and Paraphrases of Well-known English Hymns in the Mataco Language as Spoken by a Tribe of Indians Living in That Part of the Gran Chaco which is under the Rule of the Argentine Republic. Digitized by Richard Mammana
Collections in the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America
Matacoan languages
Languages of Bolivia
Languages of Argentina
{{indigenousAmerican-lang-stub