The Teushen language is an
indigenous language of Argentina, which may be extinct. It was spoken by the
Teushen people, a nomadic
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...
people 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 ...
, who lived between 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 ...
to their north and the
Tehuelche people to the south, who occupied the central part of the Tierra del Fuego region. The tribe is now extinct.
The language is thought to be related to the
Selk'nam,
Puelche, and
Tehuelche languages. These collectively belong to the
Chonan language family.
In the early 19th century, some
Tehuelche people also spoke Teushen.
[Adelaar and Muysken, 581]
See also
*
Haush language
The Haush language (also Manek'enk) was an indigenous language spoken by the Haush people and was formerly spoken on the island of Tierra del Fuego. The Haush were considered the oldest inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego; they inhabited the far ea ...
*
Kawésqar language
Kawésqar (Qawasqar), also known as Alacaluf, is a critically endangered language isolate spoken in southern Chile by the Kawésqar people. Originally part of a small family, only the northern language remains. In 2009, only a handful of elderl ...
*
Selknam language
*
Tehuelche language
*
Yaghan language
Notes
References
*Adelaar, Willen F. H. and Pieter Muysken
''The languages of the Andes.''Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Teushen language
Fuegian languages
Chonan languages
Extinct languages of South America
Indigenous languages of the South American Cone
Languages of Argentina
Languages extinct in the 1950s