Kawésqar language
Encyclopedia
Kawésqar is an Alacalufan
Alacalufan languages
The Alacalufan languages are a small language family of South America. They have not been definitely linked to any other American language family.Kakauhua is extinct and Kawésqar is highly endangered.- References :*...

 language spoken in southern Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 by the Kawésqar people
Alacaluf
The Alacaluf are a South American people living in Chile on the Strait of Magellan , Chile. Their traditional language is known as Kawésqar.- Economy :They were a nomadic sea-faring people until the twentieth century...

. Originally there were several distinct dialects. Kakauhua
Kakauhua language
Kakauhua is an extinct Alacalufan language formerly spoken in Chile. - References :*...

 is sometimes listed as a dialect, but is usually listed as a separate language, as in ISO 639-3 and Ethnologue. The language family containing these two languages is known as Alacalufan. Only about 20 speakers remain, half of them on Wellington Island
Wellington Island
Wellington Island is an island west of Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Chile. It has an area of 5,556 km² and most of the island forms part of Bernardo O'Higgins National Park. It is home to the last Kawésqar people, living the village of Puerto Edén, the only inhabited place on the...

, off the southwestern coast of Chile.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open æ a

Consonants

Labial
Labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...

Alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...

Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Glottal consonant
Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...

Nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...

m n   ŋ    
Plosive p t t͡ʃ k q ʔ
Ejective t͡ʃʼ    
Fricative f s       h
Rhotic
Rhotic consonant
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...

  r - ɾ        
Approximant w l j      

Writing System

The alphabet in use is as follows http://www.kawesqar.uchile.cl: a, æ, c, c', e, f, h, i, j, k, k', l, m, n, o, p, p', q, r, rr, s, t, t', u, w, x. However, there are reported to be differences between dialects, and some sounds that are not represented here.

Morphology and syntax

Kawésqar has a complex system of grammatical tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...

, which includes a basic morphological contrast between future, present, immediate past, recent past, distant past, and mythological past events.

External links

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