Zamucoan (also Samúkoan) is a small
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
of
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
(northeast
Chaco) and
Bolivia (
Santa Cruz Department
Santa Cruz () is the largest of the nine constituent departments of Bolivia, occupying about one-third (33.74%) of the country's territory. With an area of , it is slightly smaller than Japan or the US state of Montana. It is located in the e ...
).
The family has hardly been studied by linguists (as of Adelaar & Muysken 2004), although several studies have recently appeared (see: Bertinetto 2009, 2010, 2013; Ciucci 2007/08, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2013a, 2013b). Recent studies show that the Zamucoan languages are characterized by a rare syntactic configuration which is called para-
hypotaxis
Hypotaxis is the grammatical arrangement of functionally similar but "unequal" constructs (from Greek ''hypo-'' "beneath", and ''taxis'' "arrangement"); certain constructs have more importance than others inside a sentence.
A common example of sy ...
, where coordination and subordination are used simultaneously to connect clauses (Bertinetto & Ciucci 2012).
Extant languages
Zamucoan consists of two living languages:
*
Ayoreo
The Ayoreo (Ayoreode, Ayoréo, Ayoréode) are an indigenous people of the Gran Chaco. They live in an area surrounded by the Paraguay, Pilcomayo, Parapetí, and Grande Rivers, spanning both Bolivia and Paraguay. There are approximately 5,600 ...
(also known as Zamuco, Ayoré, Moro, Ayoréo, Ayoweo, Samuko, Morotoco, Pyeta, Yovai) – 3,160 speakers
*
Chamacoco (also known as Bahía Negra, Ebidoso, Tumarahá, Chamakoko, Ebitoso, Ishiro, Jeywo) – 2,000 speakers
Genetic relations
From the historical record of the Zamucoan peoples, the living Zamucoan languages appear to have had several relatives, now extinct. It is not clear if these were necessarily distinct languages, or even that they were Zamucoan, but Mason (1950)
listed them as follows:
[Fabre 2007:3–5]
*Northern
**Zamuco (Ayoreo): Zamuco (Samuca); Satienyo (Zatieño, Ibiraya)
**Morotoco (Coroino)
***Cucarate (Kukutade)
***Orebate (Ororebate); Carerá
***Panono (Panana)
***Tomoeno
**Guarañoca
ossibly a dialect of Ayoreo Tsiracua (Empelota); Mora (remnants of Morotoco and Guarañoca)
**Ugaraño
**Tapii (Tapio)
**Poturero (Ninaquiguilá)
*Southern
**Chamacoco (Tumanahá, Timinihá): Ebidoso, Horio (Ishira), Tumerehã
**Imono
**Tunacho (Tunaca)
**Caipotorade
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Zamucoan language varieties.
References
Bibliography
* Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). ''The languages of the Andes''. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press.
* Bertinetto, Pier Marco (2009). Ayoreo (Zamuco). A grammatical sketch. ''Quaderni del laboratorio di Linguistica'' 8 n.s. (Online version:
).
* Bertinetto, Pier Marco (2010). How the Zamuco languages dealt with verb affixes. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica'' 9,1 n.s. (Online version: ).
*Bertinetto, Pier Marco (2013). Ayoreo (Zamuco) as a radical tenseless language. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica'' 12 n.s. (Online version: )
* Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Luca Ciucci 2012
''Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Para-Hypotaxis in the Zamucoan Languages''
In: Linguistic Discovery 10.1: 89-111.
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Ciucci, Luca (2007/08). Indagini sulla morfologia verbale nella lingua ayoreo. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore'' 7 n.s. (Online version: )
* Ciucci, Luca (2009). Elementi di morfologia verbale del chamacoco. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore'' 8 n.s. (Online version: )
* Ciucci, Luca (2010a). La flessione possessiva dell’ayoreo. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore'' 9,2 n.s. (Online version: )
* Ciucci, Luca (2010b). La flessione possessiva del chamacoco. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore'' 9,2 n.s. (Online version: )
* Ciucci, Luca (2013a). ''Inflectional morphology in the Zamucoan languages''. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Ph.D. Thesis.
* Ciucci, Luca (2013b). Chamacoco lexicographical supplement. ''Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore'' 12 n.s. (Online version: )
* Fabre, Alain. (por aparecer, 2005). Los pueblos del Gran Chaco y sus lenguas, cuarta parte: Los zamuco. ''Suplemento Antropológico'', Asunción.
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), ''Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages'' (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. .
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the world's languages'' (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
*Ulrich, M.; Ulrich, R. (2000). Diccionario Ishi̵ro (Chamacoco) - Español, Español - Ishi̵ro (Chamacoco). Asuncion: Misión a Nuevas Tribus Paraguay.
External links
* Proel
* Sorosoro
Zamucoan languages
*
Arte de la lengua zamuca
', written by father Ignace Chomé (1696).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zamucoan Languages
Language families
Chaco linguistic area