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Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to
Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north ha ...
spoken in south-central
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
and west-central
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 List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
by the
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 ...
people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che'' 'people'). It is also spelled Mapuzugun and Mapudungu. It was formerly known as Araucanian, the name given to the Mapuche by the Spaniards; the Mapuche avoid it as a remnant of Spanish colonialism. Mapudungun is not an official language of the countries Chile and Argentina, receiving virtually no government support throughout its history. However, since 2013, Mapuche, along with Spanish, has been granted the status of an official language by the local government of Galvarino, one of the many
Communes of Chile A commune ( es, comuna, ) is the smallest administrative subdivision in Chile. It may contain cities, towns, villages, hamlets as well as rural areas. In highly populated areas, such as Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción, a conurbation may ...
. It is not used as a language of instruction in either country's educational system despite the Chilean government's commitment to provide full access to education in Mapuche areas in southern Chile. There is an ongoing political debate over which alphabet to use as the standard alphabet of written Mapudungun. In 1982, it was estimated that there were 202,000 Mapuche speakers in Chile, including those that speak the Pehuenche and
Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north ha ...
dialects, and another 100,000 speakers in Argentina as of the year 2000. However, a 2002 study suggests that only 16% of those who identify as Mapuche speak the language (active speakers) and 18% can only understand it ( passive speakers). These figures suggest that the total number of active speakers is about 120,000 and that there are slightly more passive speakers of Mapuche in Chile. As of 2013 only 2.4% of urban speakers and 16% of rural speakers use Mapudungun when speaking with children, and only 3.8% of speakers aged 10–19 years in the south of Chile (the language's stronghold) are "highly competent" in the language. Speakers of
Chilean Spanish Chilean Spanish ( es, español chileno) is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile. Chilean Spanish dialects have distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usages that differ from those of Sta ...
who also speak Mapudungun tend to use more impersonal pronouns when speaking Spanish. The language has also influenced the Spanish lexicon within the areas in which it is spoken and has also incorporated
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
from both Spanish and Quechua.


Name

Depending on the alphabet, the sound is spelled or , and as or . The language is called either the "speech (') of the land (')" or the "speech of the people (')". An may connect the two words. There are thus several ways to write the name of the language:


History


Prehistory

Moulian ''et al.'' (2015) argue that the Puquina language influenced Mapuche language long before the rise of the
Inca Empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts",  "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...
. The influence of Puquine is thought to be the reason for the existence of Mapuche-Aymara-Quechua
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...
s The following Pre-Incan cognates have been identified by Moulian ''et al.'': sun ( arn, antü, qu, inti), moon ( arn, küllen, qu, killa), warlock ( arn, kalku, qu, kawchu), salt ( arn, chadi, qu, cachi) and mother ( arn, ñuque, qu, ñuñu). This areal linguistic influence may have arrived with a migratory wave arising from the collapse of the Tiwanaku Empire around 1000 CE. There is a more recent lexical influence from the
Quechuan languages Quechua (, ; ), usually called ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widel ...
(''pataka'' 'hundred', ''warangka'' 'thousand'), associated with the
Inca Empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts",  "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...
, and from Spanish. As result of Inca rule, there was some Mapudungun– Imperial Quechua bilingualism among the Mapuches of Aconcagua Valley at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 1530s and 1540s. The discovery of many Chono toponyms in Chiloé Archipelago, where
Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north ha ...
, a language closely related to Mapudungun, has been dominant, suggest that Mapudungun displaced Chono there prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the mid-16th century. A theory postulated by chronicler
José Pérez García José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacu ...
holds that the
Cuncos Cuncos or Juncos is a poorly known subgroup of Huilliche people native to coastal areas of southern Chile and the nearby inland. Mostly a historic term, Cuncos are chiefly known for their long-running conflict with the Spanish during the coloni ...
settled in
Chiloé Island Chiloé Island ( es, Isla de Chiloé, , ) also known as Greater Island of Chiloé (''Isla Grande de Chiloé''), is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the west coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean. The island is located in southern ...
in
Pre-Hispanic In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...
times as consequence of a push from more northern Huilliches, who in turn were being displaced by
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 ...
s. According to Ramírez "more than a dozen Mapuche – Rapa Nui
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...
s have been described". Among these are the Mapuche/Rapa Nui words ''toki''/''toki'' (axe), ''kuri''/''uri'' (black) and ''piti''/''iti'' (little).


Spanish–Mapuche bilingualism in colonial times

As the 16th and 17th century
Central Chile Central Chile (''Zona central'') is one of the five natural regions into which CORFO divided continental Chile in 1950. It is home to a majority of the Chilean population and includes the three largest metropolitan areas—Santiago, Valparaí ...
was becoming a
melting pot The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous throu ...
for uprooted indigenous peoples, it has been argued that Mapuche, Quechua and Spanish coexisted there, with significant bilingualism, during the 17th century. However the indigenous language that has influenced
Chilean Spanish Chilean Spanish ( es, español chileno) is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile. Chilean Spanish dialects have distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usages that differ from those of Sta ...
the most is Quechua rather than Mapuche. In colonial times, many Spanish and mestizos spoke the Mapuche language. For example in the 17th century many soldiers at the
Valdivian Fort System The Fort System of Valdivia ( es, Sistema de fuertes de Valdivia) is a series of Spanish colonial fortifications at Corral Bay, Valdivia and Cruces River established to protect the city of Valdivia, in southern Chile. During the period of Span ...
had some command of Mapuche. During the 17th and 18th centuries most of Chiloé Archipelago's population was
bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all ...
and according to
John Byron Vice-Admiral John Byron (8 November 1723 – 1 April 1786) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer. He earned the nickname "Foul-Weather Jack" in the press because of his frequent encounters with bad weather at sea. As a midshipman, he sa ...
many Spaniards preferred to use the local
Huilliche language Huilliche (which can also be found spelt Williche, Huiliche or Veliche) is a moribund branch of the Araucanian language family. In 1982 it was spoken by about 2,000 ethnic Huilliche people in Chile, but now it is only spoken by a few elderly spe ...
because they considered it more beautiful. Around the same time,
Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Narciso de Santa María complained that Spanish settlers in the islands could not speak Spanish properly, but could speak Veliche, and that this second language was more used.


Further decline

Mapudungun was once the main language spoken in central Chile. The sociolinguistic situation of the Mapuche has changed rapidly. Now, nearly all of Mapuche people are bilingual or monolingual in Spanish. The degree of bilingualism depends on the community, participation in Chilean society, and the individual's choice towards the traditional or modern/urban way of life.


Classification and origin

There is no consensus among experts regarding the relation between Mapuche and other indigenous languages of
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 sou ...
and it is classified as 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 nu ...
, or more conservatively, an
unclassified language An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...
while researchers await more definitive evidence linking it to other languages. The origin of Mapuche is a historically debated topic and hypotheses have changed over time. In a 1970 publication, Stark argued that Mapuche is related to Mayan languages of
Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...
. The following year, Hamp adopted this same hypothesis. Stark later argued in 1973 that Mapuche descended from a language known as 'Yucha' which is a sister of Proto-Mayan language and a predecessor of the Chimuan languages, which hail from the northern coast of
Perú , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...
, and Uru-Chipaya ( Uruquilla and Chipaya) languages, which are spoken by those who currently inhabit the islands of Lake Titicaca and peoples living in Oruro Department in
Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
, respectively. This hypothesis was later rejected by Campbell in the same year. The research carried out by Mary R. Key in 1978 considered Mapuche to be related to other languages of Chile: specifically Kawésgar language and Yagán language which were both spoken by nomadic canoer communities from the Zona Austral and also with Chonan languages of Patagonia, some of which are now extinct. However, according to Key, there is a closer relation still between Mapuche and the Pano-Tacanan languages from Bolivia and Perú, a connection also made by Loos in 1973. Key also argued that there is a link to two Bolivian language isolates: the Mosetén and Yuracaré languages. In 1987,
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 ...
, a linguist from the United States, proposed a system of classification of the many indigenous languages of the Americas in which the Amerindian language family would include the large majority of languages found on the South American continent, which were formerly grouped in distinct families. The only families that fell outside of his framework were the
Eskimo–Aleut languages The Eskaleut (), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of w ...
and
Na-Dene languages Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now consider ...
. According to this classification, Mapuche would be considered part of the Andean language family, within the Meridional subgroup which also includes the Kawésgar language, the
Puelche language Puelche was a language formerly spoken by the Puelche people in the Pampas region of Argentina. The language is also known as ''Gününa Küne'', Gennaken (Guenaken), Northern Tehuelche, ''Gününa Yajich'', Ranquelche, and Pampa. Classificati ...
, the Tehuelche language and the Yagán language. To Greenberg, Araucano isn't an individual language, but rather a subgroup composed of four languages: Araucano, Mapuche, Moluche, and Pehuenche. However, the comparative methods employed by Greenberg are controversial. In 1994, Viegas Barros directly contradicted Greenberg's hypothesis and part of Key's, arguing that a connection between the Merindonal subgroup mentioned above and the Mapuche language does not exist. Current linguists reject Greenberg's findings due to methodological concerns and opt instead for more conservative methods of classification. Moreover, many linguists do not accept the existence of an Amerindia language family due to the lack of available information needed to confirm it. Other authorities such as SIL International classify Mapuche as one of the two languages that form that Araucana family along with Huilliche. However, most current linguists maintain a more conservative stance, classifying Mapuche as a language that remains separated from other indigenous languages of South America while its differences and similarities to them are being studied.


Dialects

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. Lingu ...
Robert A. Croese divides Mapudungun into eight dialectal sub-groups (I-VIII). Sub-group I is centered in Arauco Province, Sub-group II is the dialect of Angol, Los Ángeles and the middle and lower Bío Bío River. Sub-group III is centered around Purén. In the areas around Lonquimay, Melipeuco and
Allipén River Allipén River is a river located in the La Araucanía Region of Chile. It is formed at the junction of the rivers Trufultruful and ''Zahuelhue'', near Melipeuco. The basin of the river comprises approximately 36 percent of the Conguillío Nation ...
dialect sub-group IV is spoken. Sub-group V is spoken at the coast of Araucanía Region including Queule,
Budi Lake Budi Lake ( es, Lago Budi, ) from the Mapudungun word ''Füzi'' which means salt, is a tidal brackish water lake located near the coast of La Araucanía Region, southern Chile. The lake is part of the boundaries between Saavedra and Teodoro S ...
and
Toltén Toltén is a Chilean commune located at the lower flows Toltén River at the southern coast of Cautín Province which is part of Araucanía Region. The commune is administered by the municipality Nueva Toltén, the main harbour and town within th ...
. Temuco is the epicenter of the Mapuche territory today. Around Temuco, Freire and Gorbea the sub-group VI is spoken. Group VII is spoken in Valdivia Province plus Pucón and Curarrehue. The last "dialect" sub-group is VIII which is the
Huilliche language Huilliche (which can also be found spelt Williche, Huiliche or Veliche) is a moribund branch of the Araucanian language family. In 1982 it was spoken by about 2,000 ethnic Huilliche people in Chile, but now it is only spoken by a few elderly spe ...
spoken from Lago Ranco and Río Bueno to the south and is not mutually intelligible with the other dialects. These can be grouped in four dialect groups: north, central, south-central and south. These are further divided into eight sub-groups: I and II (northern), III–IV (central), V-VII (south-central) and VIII (southern). The sub-groups III-VII are more closely related to each other than they are to I-II and VIII. Croese finds these relationships as consistent, but not proof, with the theory of origin of the Mapuche proposed by Ricardo E. Latcham. The Mapudungun spoken in the Argentinian provinces of Neuquen and Río Negro is similar to that of the central dialect group in Chile, while the Ranquel (Rankülche) variety spoken in the Argentinian province of La Pampa is closer to the northern dialect group.


Grammar

Mapuche is a
polysynthetic language 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 ...
with noun incorporation and root composition. Broadly speaking this means that words are formed by
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative la ...
of lexical elements to the extent that a single word can require a translation that produces a complete sentence.


Phonology


Prosody

Mapudungun has partially predictable, non-contrastive stress and there is no phonemic tone. The stressed syllable is generally the last one if it is closed (' 'game', ' 'thunder'), and the one before last if the last one is open (' 'house', ' 'head'). In two-syllable words, for example, when both
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...
s are open (ending in a vowel) or both are closed (ending in a consonant), the accent falls on the final syllable. In the case that only one of the two is open, the accent falls on the open syllable. Example :''ruka'' 'home' :''iñchiñ'' 'we' :''narki'' 'cat' :''küyeṉ'' 'moon' With words that have more than two syllables and have the final two either open or closed, the accent falls on the penultimate syllable. If only one of the two is closed, that one receives the accent. Example :''williche'' '
Huilliche language Huilliche (which can also be found spelt Williche, Huiliche or Veliche) is a moribund branch of the Araucanian language family. In 1982 it was spoken by about 2,000 ethnic Huilliche people in Chile, but now it is only spoken by a few elderly spe ...
' :''pichiwentru'' 'boy' :''warangka'' 'thousand' :''mapudungun'' 'Mapuche language'.


Vowels

* Sadowsky et al. transcribe the vowels with . This article follows the traditional transcription . * In stressed syllables, are near-close , whereas the mid- are centralized close-mid . The open vowel is realized as a raised open central , making it sound closer to than to . Unstressed vowels are more close (though unstressed are still somewhat more open than stressed ). Utterance-final unstressed vowels are generally devoiced or even elided when they occur after voiceless consonants, sometimes even after voiced consonants. * Traditionally, has been described as a close central vowel with an unstressed mid-central allophone. According to Sadowsky et al., the vowel is close-mid when stressed and near-close when unstressed, patterning phonetically with the mid-series.


Consonants

* are bilabial, whereas is labiodental. * The dental series is phonetically interdental and occurs only in some dialects. * Utterance-final coronal laterals may be devoiced and fricated: . * The plosives may be aspirated. It is often the case with the main allophone of (). Its fronted allophone is less frequently aspirated, as is the alveolar . When it comes to the dental as well as the bilabial , aspiration is even rarer. * Some speakers realize as apical postalveolar, either an affricate or an aspirated plosive, it is also pronounced [], which suggest its spelling "tr". * has been traditionally classified as an approximant; however, Sadowsky et al. prefer to classify it as a fricative as that is the predominant variant in their sample. Other possible variants include a lateral approximant and, in post-nuclear position, a voiceless fricative . * may be realized with frication: . * Among the velar consonants, is labialized. Before front vowels, are fronted to .


Orthography

The Mapuche had no writing system before the Spanish arrived, but the language is now written with the Latin script. Although the
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
used in this article is based on the ''Alfabeto Mapuche Unificado'', the system used by Chilean linguists and other people in many publications in the language, the competing Ragileo, Nhewenh and Azumchefi systems all have their supporters, and there is still no consensus among authorities, linguists and Mapuche communities. The same word can look very different in each system, with the word for "conversation or story" being written either ''gvxam'', ''gytram'', or ''ngütram'', for example.


Microsoft lawsuit

In late 2006, Mapuche leaders threatened to sue
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
when the latter completed a translation of their
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
operating system into Mapudungun. They claimed that Microsoft needed permission to do so and had not sought it. The event can be seen in the light of the greater political struggle concerning the
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
that should become the standard alphabet of the Mapuche people.


Morphology

*Mapuche is an
agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to rem ...
. The
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 ...
of Mapudungun is flexible, but a topic–comment construction is common. The subject (agent) of a transitive clause tends to precede the
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
, and the object tends to follow (A–V–O order); the subject of an intransitive clause tends to follow the verb (V–S order). * Most complex verb formations in Mapudungun are constructed with five or six
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s. *
Noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s are grouped in two classes, animate and inanimate. For example, ' is a plural indicator for animate nouns and ' as the plural for inanimate nouns. ' (or ') can be used as a definite animate article, as in ' 'the man' and ' for 'the men'. The number ' 'one' serves as an
indefinite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
. Subjects and objects use the same case. *There are, for personal pronouns, three
persons A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
and three numbers: ' 'I', ' 'we (2)', ' 'we (more than 2)'; ' 'you', ' 'you (2)', ' 'you (more than 2)'; ' 'he/she/it', ' 'they (2)', ' 'they (more than 2)'. *
Possessive pronoun A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ow ...
s are related to the personal forms: ' 'my; his, her; their', ' 'our (2)', ' 'our (more than 2)'; ' 'your', ' 'your (2)', ' 'your (more than 2)'. They are often found with a particle ', which does not seem to add anything specific to the meaning: ' 'your'. *Interrogative pronouns include ' 'who', ' 'what', ' 'when', ' 'where', ' 'how' and ' 'why'. * Mapudungu uses particles, which is a small group of morphemes that enable the speaker to express how they feel about what they have said. Examples include ''chi'' (doubt), ''am'' (surprise), ''nga'' (regret), ''llemay'' (certainty), ''chemay'' (amazement), ''chiam'' (wonder), ''amfe'' (exclamation). There are also more complicated particles such as ''kay'', which suggest the information about to be said is in contrast to what was just said. Another complex particle is ''may,'' which is used when the speaker expects to get a positive reaction from what they are saying. One particle, ''anchi'', refers to the subject of the sentence, and an example would be ''"chem anchi?"'' which translates to what sthat (pointed out)? * "An inflection can be added to a noun with -''mew'' or -''mu''. This
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
can refer to time, place, cause or comparison. "An example of this is the sentence *Numbers from 1 to 10 are as follows: 1 ', 2 ', 3 ', 4 ', 5 ', 6 ', 7 ', 8 ', 9 ', 10 '; 20 ', 30 ', 110 '. Numbers are extremely regular in formation, which is comparable to Chinese and Wolof, or to constructed languages such as
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
. *Verbs can be finite or non-finite (non-finite endings: ''-n'', ''-el'', ''-etew'', ''-lu'', ''-am'', etc.), are intransitive or transitive and are conjugated according to person (first, second and third), number (singular, dual and plural), voice (active, agentless passive and reflexive-reciprocal, plus two applicatives) and mood (indicative, imperative and subjunctive). In the indicative, the present (zero) and future (''-(y)a'') tenses are distinguished. There are a number of aspects: the progressive, resultative and habitual are well established; some forms that seem to mark some subtype of perfect are also found. Other verb morphology includes an evidential marker (reportative-mirative), directionals (cislocative, translocative, andative and ambulative, plus an interruptive and continuous action marker) and modal markers (sudden action, faked action, immediate action, etc.). There is productive noun incorporation, and the case can be made for root compounding morphology. * "Spanish loan verbs have generally been adapted into Mapudungu in the third person singular form. An example is the Mapudungu verb for "to be able" is ''"pwede,"'' and the Spanish translation for "he can" is ''"puede."'' The indicative present paradigm for an intransitive verb like ' 'enter' is as follows: What some authors have described as an inverse system (similar to the ones described for
Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically simi ...
) can be seen from the forms of a transitive verb like ' 'see'. The 'intransitive' forms are the following: The 'transitive' forms are the following (only singular forms are provided here): When a third person interacts with a first or second person, the forms are direct (without ''-e'') or inverse (with ''-e''); the speaker has no choice. When two third persons interact, two different forms are available: the direct form (') is appropriate when the agent is topical (the central figure in that particular passage). The inverse form (') is appropriate when the patient is topical. Thus, ' means 'the man saw the woman' while ' means something like 'the man was seen by the woman'. However, that it is not a passive construction; the passive would be ' 'the man was seen; someone saw the man'. Therefore, a better translation may be 'it was the woman who saw the man' or 'the woman was the one who saw the man'.


Language revitalization efforts

The Chilean Ministry of Education created the Office of Intercultural Bilingual Education in 1996 in an attempt to include indigenous language in education. By 2004, there were still no programs in public schools in Santiago, despite the fact that 50% of the country’s Mapuche population resides in and around the area of Santiago. 30.4% of Mapuche students never graduate eighth grade and they have high rates of poverty. Most language revitalization efforts have been in rural communities and these efforts have been received in different ways by the Mapuche population: Ortiz says some feel that teaching Mapudungu in schools will set their children behind other Chileans, which reveals that their culture has been devalued by the Chilean government for so long that, unfortunately, some Mapuche people have come to see their language as worthless, too, which is a direct and lasting impact of colonization. Despite the absence of Mapudungun instruction in public schools, there are limited language course offerings at select Chilean universities, such as
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (''PUC or UC Chile'') ( es, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical universities ...
.


Studies


Older works

The formalization and normalization of Mapudungun was effected by the first Mapudungun grammar published by the Jesuit priest Luis de Valdivia in 1606 (''Arte y Gramatica General de la Lengva que Corre en Todo el Reyno de Chile''). More important is the ''Arte de la Lengua General del Reyno de Chile'' by the Jesuit Andrés Fabrés (1765, Lima) composed of a grammar and dictionary. In 1776 three volumes in Latin were published in
Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...
(''Chilidúgú sive Res Chilenses'') by the German Jesuit Bernhard Havestadt. The work by Febrés was used as a basic preparation from 1810 for missionary priests going into the regions occupied by the Mapuche people. A corrected version was completed in 1846 and a summary, without a dictionary in 1864. A work based on Febrés' book is the ''Breve Metodo della Lingua Araucana y Dizionario Italo-Araucano e Viceversa'' by the Italian Octaviano de Niza in 1888. It was destroyed in a fire at the Convento de San Francisco in
Valdivia Valdivia (; Mapuche: Ainil) is a city and commune in southern Chile, administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia, and Cau-Ca ...
in 1928.


Modern works

The most comprehensive works to date are the ones by Augusta (1903, 1916). Salas (1992, 2006) is an introduction for non-specialists, featuring an ethnographic introduction and a valuable text collection as well. Zúñiga (2006) includes a complete grammatical description, a bilingual dictionary, some texts and an audio CD with text recordings (educational material, a traditional folktale and six contemporary poems). Smeets (1989) and Zúñiga (2000) are for specialists only. Fernández-Garay (2005) introduces both the language and the culture. Catrileo (1995) and the dictionaries by Hernández & Ramos are trilingual (Spanish, English and Mapudungun). * ''Gramática mapuche bilingüe'', by Félix José de Augusta, Santiago, 1903. 990 reprint by Séneca, Santiago.* ''Idioma mapuche'', by Ernesto Wilhelm de Moesbach, Padre Las Casas, Chile: San Francisco, 1962. * ''El mapuche o araucano. Fonología, gramática y antología de cuentos'', by Adalberto Salas, Madrid: MAPFRE, 1992. * ''El mapuche o araucano. Fonología, gramática y antología de cuentos'', by Adalberto Salas, edited by Fernando Zúñiga, Santiago:
Centro de Estudios Públicos Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP) is a non-profit Chilean think tank founded in 1980. Its stated mission is to “contribute to the development of a free and democratic society” through: 1) the analysis and dissemination of philosophical, pol ...
, 2006. nd (revised) edition of Salas 1992. * ''A Mapuche grammar'', by Ineke Smeets, Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University, 1989. * ''Mapudungun'', by Fernando Zúñiga, Munich: Lincom Europa, 2000. * ''Parlons Mapuche: La langue des Araucans'', by Ana Fernández-Garay. Editions L'Harmattan, 2005, * ''Mapudungun: El habla mapuche. Introducción a la lengua mapuche, con notas comparativas y un CD'', by Fernando Zúñiga, Santiago: Centro de Estudios Públicos, 2006. * ''A Grammar of Mapuche'', by Ineke Smeets. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.


Dictionaries

* Félix José de Augusta, ''Diccionario araucano'', Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Universitaria, 1916
Tomo primero

Tomo segundo
996 reprint by Cerro Manquehue, Santiago.* * María Catrileo, ''Diccionario lingüístico-etnográfico de la lengua mapuche. Mapudungun-español-English'', Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1995. * Esteban Erize, ''Diccionario comentado mapuche-español'', Bahía Blanca: Yepun, 1960. * Ana Fernández Garay, ''Ranquel-español/español-ranquel. Diccionario de una variedad mapuche de la Pampa (Argentina)'', Leiden: CNWS (Leiden University), 2001. * Arturo Hernández and Nelly Ramos, ''Diccionario ilustrado mapudungun-español-inglés'', Santiago: Pehuén, 1997. * Arturo Hernández and Nelly Ramos, ''Mapuche: lengua y cultura. Mapudungun-español-inglés'', Santiago: Pehuén, 2005. th (augmented) edition of their 1997 dictionary.* Muñoz Urrutia, Rafael, ed. (2006). ''Diccionario Mapuche: Mapudungun/Español, Español/Mapudungun'' (2ª edición). Santiago de Chile: Editorial Centro Gráfico Ltda. .


Mapudungun language courses

* ''Mapudunguyu 1. Curso de lengua mapuche'', by María Catrileo, Valdivia:
Universidad Austral de Chile Austral University of Chile ( es, Universidad Austral de Chile or UACh) is a Chilean research university based primarily in Valdivia, with a satellite campus in Puerto Montt. Founded on September 7, 1954, it is one of the eight original Chilean Tr ...
, 2002. * ''Manual de aprendizaje del idioma mapuche: Aspectos morfológicos y sintácticos'', by Bryan Harmelink, Temuco:
Universidad de la Frontera University of the Frontier ( es, Universidad de La Frontera) or UFRO is a public university in Temuco, Araucanía Region, Chile. It is a derivative university and part of the Chilean Traditional Universities. UFRO boasts a student body with a varie ...
, 1996. * ''EH2518 Introducción a la lengua y cultura Mapuche'', Santago Universidad de Chile, 2020.


See also

*
List of Mapudungun placenames The following is a listing of placenames from the Mapudungun language, generally from Chile and southwestern Argentina. ''Note: this list includes only currently used placenames that have a Mapudungun etymology for at least part of their name '' ...
* María Catrileo


References


Bibliography

* Aprueban alfabeto mapuche único (Oct 19, 1999). ''El Mercurio de Santiago''. * Campbell, Lyle (1997) ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York:
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
. . * Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (2005) ''Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas (ECPI), 2004–2005 – Primeros resultados provisionales''. Buenos Aires: INDEC. ISSN 0327-7968. * *


External links


Sound Comparisons: Mapudungun
containing audio recordings and phonetic transcriptions of 37 regional varieties of Mapudungun.
Mapudungun Vocabulary List
(from the World Loanword Database)
Mapudungun Swadesh vocabulary list
(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh-list appendix

Mapudungun-Spanish Dictionary from the U. Católica de TemucoMapuche-Spanish dictionary
from the ttps://web.archive.org/web/20160701174158/http://www.ailla.utexas.org/search/collection.html?c_id=85 Mapuche Collection of Magnus Courseat AILLA.
Argentinian Languages Collection of Lucía Golluscio
containing audio recordings of Mapudungun from the
Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is a digital repository housed in LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas at Austin. AILLA is a digital language archive dedicated to the dig ...
.
Mapudungun
(
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 A ...
) {{South American languages Languages of Chile Languages of Argentina Indigenous languages of the South American Cone Araucanian languages