The Languages of the Andes

Abstract

The Andean and Pacific regions of South America are home to a remarkable variety of languages and language families, with a range of typological differences. This linguistic diversity results from a complex historical background, comprising periods of greater communication between different peoples and languages, and periods of fragmentation and individual development. The Languages of the Andes documents in a single volume the indigenous languages spoken and formerly spoken in this linguistically rich region, as well as in adjacent areas. Grouping the languages into different cultural spheres, it describes their characteristics in terms of language typology, language contact, and the social perspectives of present-day languages. The authors provide both historical and contemporary information, and illustrate the languages with detailed grammatical sketches. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of linguistics and anthropology alike.

Pillañ peuma rruaín: el mapudungún en Chiloé a fines del siglo XIX según los collag

“…En cuanto a los verbos, aparece una gran cantidad de sufijos verbales, característica bien conocida y comentada en diversos trabajos sobre el idioma (Salas, 1992;Adelaar y Muysken, 2004;Smeets, 2009). La lista de sufijos de Smeets (2009) supera los 100 elementos, mientras que en este corpus se encontraron 42, un número que dista de ser excepcional si se considera la baja frecuencia de algunos sufijos y la extensión del material analizado.…”

“…(1) Quiñe degnu allquíll-lliayu píñom (Cañas, 1908, p. 156 El sistema que documentó Luis de Valdivia en 1606 en Santiago y Félix de Augusta en 1903 entre los huilliches coincidía con (2), pues usaba -e y la terminación de la segunda persona paciente, sin marcar de ningún modo a la primera persona agente (Adelaar y Muysken, 2004). La coexistencia de estas dos formas en Chiloé podría indicar que la variedad insular se separó cuando era posible recurrir a los dos tipos de construcción para expresar estas interacciones.…”

Vowel Height Allophony and Dorsal Place Contrasts in Cochabamba Quechua

“…(1) (a) [q'epij] 'mountain' The high and mid vowels are in an allophonic relationship: the mid vowels appear in the vicinity of a uvular consonant and high vowels appear elsewhere (Bills et al, 1969;Adelaar and Muysken, 2004;Hoggarth, 2004;Laime Ajacopa, 2007). The low Vowel Height in Cochabamba Quechua vowel may appear in any consonantal context.…”

Exploring Phonological Areality in the Circum-Andean Region Using a Naive Bayes Classifier

“…Other Quechuan languages have negative NBC scores for this core, indicating that Bolivian and Cuzco-Collao Quechua have been so significantly affected by contact with non-Quechuan Southern core languages that their phonological inventories pattern with those of these latter languages, rather than the Quechuan languages to which they are genetically related. Santiago del Estero Quechua is the next more non-North-Central-like Quechuan language, presumably due to the fact that its speakers migrated to the Argentinean pampas during the latest stages of the expansion of the Inka empire (Adelaar and Muysken 2004). At the same time, Jaqarú [jqr], a language belonging to the Aymaran language family, although still solidly patterning with Southern core languages, more closely resembles North-Central core languages than any of the Aymaran languages to which it is genetically related.…”