Migueleño Chiquitano (self-denomination: ''ózura'' , literally 'our speech') is a variety of the

Chiquitano The Chiquitano or Chiquitos are an indigenous people of Bolivia, with a small number also living in Brazil. The Chiquitano primarily live in the Chiquitania tropical savanna of Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia, with a small number also living in ...

language of the Macro-Jê family, which is remembered by several dozen people of the

ethnicity in San Miguel de Velasco ( Santa Cruz),

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

, as well as in neighboring villages. Migueleño is closely related to other varieties of the Chiquitano language, such as Bésɨro and Eastern Chiquitano. Its most salient phonological features include the occurrence of the

voiceless velar fricative The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''lo ...

corresponding to the

retroflex A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

of the other dialects and the merger of the palatalized counterparts of and as . It is also the only variety of Chiquitano in which distinct first person

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, see List of animal names * Singular (band), a Thai jazz pop duo *'' Singula ...

prefixes have been documented for the male and female genderlects.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Migueleño Chiquitano is shown below (the orthographic representation is given in italics; the characters in slashes stand for the IPA values of each consonant).

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Migueleño Chiquitano is shown below (the orthographic representation is given in italics; the characters in slashes stand for the IPA values of each vowel).

Genderlects

In Migueleño Chiquitano, male speech is distinct from female speech in exhibiting extra morphological complexity. In particular, the male genderlect distinguishes between three

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

s (

masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some beh ...

, non-human

animate Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

, and feminine/inanimate), whereas the female genderlect has no grammatical gender distinctions at all (all nouns behave like the feminine/inanimate nouns in the male genderlect). In addition, the first person

prefixes are distinct in the male genderlect (underlying form , ij-, ) and in the female genderlect (underlying form , ix-, ). Female and male speech further differ in using different suffixes (female ''-ki'', male ''-che'') when deriving content interrogative/relative words. There are also differences in the choice of the demonstratives.

Chiquitano homilies

In San Miguel de Velasco, Catholic

homilies A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered e ...

are traditionally recited in an early form of Migueleño Chiquitano on certain religious occasions. This practice can be traced back to the

Jesuit reductions The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 by ...

of the 18th century, and the texts of the homilies have been transmitted (both orally and in the written form) across generations. The homilies have been extensively studied by Severin Parzinger, who has published a compilation thereof.

References

{{Macro-Jê languages Languages of Bolivia Indigenous languages of South America (Central) Language isolates of South America Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos