Chipaya language

ChipayaTemplate:Refn (endolinguonym Chipay taqu) is a native South American language of the Uru–Chipaya language family. The only other language in the grouping, Uru, is considered by some to be a divergent dialect of Chipaya. Ethnologue lists the language vitality as "vigorous," with 1,800 speakers out of an ethnic population of around Template:Sigfig, although younger generations speak it progressively less. Chipaya has been influenced considerably by Aymara, the Quechuan languages, and more recently, Spanish, with a third of its vocabulary having been replaced by those languages.

Geographical distribution

The Chipayan language is spoken in the area south of Lake Titicaca along the Desaguadero River in the mountains of Bolivia and mainly in the town of Chipaya located in the Sabaya Province of the Bolivian department of Oruro north of Coipasa Salt Flats. Native speakers generally refer to it as Chipay taqu or Puquina or Uchun Maa Taqu ("our mother language"), but is not the same as, nor in fact even related to, the extinct Puquina language.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar		Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar		Uvular
							plain	labialized	plain	labialized
Nasal		m  Template:IPAslink	n  Template:IPAslink			ň  Template:IPAslink	ŋ  Template:IPAslink
Plosive	plain	p  Template:IPAslink	t  Template:IPAslink				k  Template:IPAslink	kʷ  Template:IPAslink	q  Template:IPAslink	qʷ  Template:IPAslink
	aspirated	ph  Template:IPAslink	th  Template:IPAslink				kh  Template:IPAslink		qh  Template:IPAslink
	ejective	p'  Template:IPAslink	t'  Template:IPAslink				k'  Template:IPAslink		q'  Template:IPAslink
Affricate	plain		¢  Template:IPAslink		ĉ  Template:IPAslink	č  Template:IPAslink
	aspirated		¢h  Template:IPAslink		ĉh  Template:IPAslink	čh  Template:IPAslink
	ejective		¢'  Template:IPAslink		ĉ'  Template:IPAslink	č'  Template:IPAslink
Fricative			z  Template:IPAslink	s  Template:IPAslink	ŝ  Template:IPAslink		h  Template:IPAslink	hʷ  Template:IPAslink	x  Template:IPAslink	xʷ  Template:IPAslink
Rhotic			r  Template:IPAslink
Lateral	central		l  Template:IPAslink			ll  Template:IPAslink
	fricative		lj  Template:IPAslink
Approximant						y  Template:IPAslink		w  Template:IPAslink

Consonant clusters

Multiple possibilities are separated by slashes, and optional elements are enclosed in parentheses.

Possible syllable onsets are:

• (s/ŝ) + p + (h)
• (s/ŝ/sh) + k/q + (h/hʷ/x/xʷ)
• s/ŝ + p/k/kʷ/q/qʷ/h/hʷ/m/n
• t + h/hʷ/x/xʷ
• ¢/ĉ/č/l + h

Possible syllable codas are:

• h/x + p/t/k/q/l/ll/r + (t)
• hʷ/xʷ + k/q + (t)
• Consonant + t

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i  Template:IPAslink		u  Template:IPAslink
Mid	e  Template:IPAslink		o  Template:IPAslink
Low		a  Template:IPAslink

• Each vowel can be short, e.g., a , or long, e.g., a• .

Grammar

Chipaya is an agglutinative language, though it has features uncommon to most agglutinative languages, according to preliminary research by the organization DOBES.

External links

• DOBES - Chipaya Language
• DOBES - Uru-Chipaya
• Lilian Porterie Etudes, Audios and Transcriptions of the Chipaya Language
• Chipaya (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)