Mapudungun[7][8] (frommapu 'land' anddungun 'speak, speech', meaning 'the speech of the land'; also spelledMapuzugun andMapudungu) orMapuche (/məˈpuːtʃi/mə-POO-che,[9]Mapuche and Spanish:[maˈputʃe]; frommapu 'land' andche 'people', meaning 'the people of the land') is a language, either alanguage isolate or member of the smallAraucanian family related toHuilliche[10][11]spoken in south-centralChile and west-centralArgentina by theMapuche people. It was formerly known asAraucanian,[8] the name given to the Mapuche by the Spanish. The Mapuche avoid this term as a remnant ofSpanish colonialism.
Mapudungun is not an official national language of Chile or Argentina, having received virtually no government support throughout its history.[12] However, since 2013, Mapuche, along with Spanish, has been granted the status of an official language by the local government ofGalvarino, one of the manycommunes of Chile.[13] It is not used as a language of instruction in either country's educational system despite the Chilean government's commitment to provide full access to education in Mapuche areas in southern Chile. There is an ongoing political debate over which alphabet to use as the standard alphabet of written Mapudungun.
In 1982, it was estimated that there were 202,000 Mapuche speakers in Chile, including those that speak thePehuenche andHuilliche dialects, and another 100,000 speakers in Argentina as of the year 2000.[14] However, a 2002 study suggests that only 16% of those who identify as Mapuche speak the language (active speakers) and another 18% can only understand it (passive speakers). These figures suggest that the total number of active speakers is about 120,000 and that there are slightly more passive speakers of Mapuche in Chile.[11] As of 2013 only 2.4% of urban speakers and 16% of rural speakers use Mapudungun when speaking with children. Only 3.8% of speakers aged 10–19 years in the south of Chile (the language's stronghold) are "highly competent" in the language.[15]
Speakers ofChilean Spanish who also speak Mapudungun tend to use moreimpersonal pronouns when speaking Spanish.[16] InCautín Province andLlifén, contact with Mapuche language may be the reason why there is a lack ofyeísmo among some Spanish speakers.[17] The language has also influenced the Spanish lexicon within the areas in which it is spoken. At the same time, it has incorporatedloanwords from bothSpanish andQuechua.
Depending on the alphabet, the sound/tʃ/ is spelled⟨ch⟩ or⟨c⟩, and/ŋ/ as⟨g⟩ or⟨ng⟩. The language is called either the "speech (d/zuŋun) of the land (mapu)" or the "speech of the people (tʃe)". An⟨n⟩ may connect the two words. There are thus several ways to write the name of the language:
Chileanproverb written in Mapuche andChilean Spanish. TheMapudungun alphabet used here does not reflect an agreed-upon standard. In fact, there are three distinct alphabets currently used to write the Mapuche language.[19]
There is no consensus among experts regarding the relation between Mapuche and other indigenous languages ofSouth America[20] and it is classified as alanguage isolate, or more conservatively, anunclassified language while researchers await more definitive evidence linking it to other languages.[11]
The origin of Mapuche is a historically debated topic and hypotheses have changed over time.[11] In a 1970 publication, Stark argued that Mapuche is related toMayan languages ofMesoamerica. The following year, Hamp adopted this same hypothesis. Stark later argued in 1973 that Mapuche descended from a language known as 'Yucha' which is a sister ofProto-Mayan language and a predecessor of theChimuan languages, which hail from the northern coast ofPeru, and Uru-Chipaya (Uruquilla andChipaya) languages, which are spoken by those who currently inhabit the islands of LakeTiticaca and peoples living inOruro Department inBolivia, respectively. This hypothesis was later rejected by Campbell in the same year.
The research carried out by Mary R. Key in 1978 considered Mapuche to be related to otherlanguages of Chile: specifically Kawésgar language and Yagán language which were both spoken by nomadic canoer communities from theZona Austral and also withChonan languages ofPatagonia, some of which are now extinct. However, according to Key, there is a closer relation still between Mapuche and thePano-Tacanan languages from Bolivia and Peru, a connection also made by Loos in 1973. Key also argued that there is a link to two Bolivian language isolates: theMosetén andYuracaré languages.[21]
In 1987,Joseph Greenberg, a linguist from the United States, proposed a system of classification of the many indigenous languages of the Americas in which the Amerindian language family would include the large majority of languages found on the South American continent, which were formerly grouped in distinct families.[22] The only families that fell outside of his framework were theEskimo–Aleut languages andNa-Dene languages. According to this classification, Mapuche would be considered part of the Andean language family, within the Meridional subgroup which also includes the Kawésgar language, thePuelche language, theTehuelche language and the Yagán language. To Greenberg, Araucano is not an individual language, but rather a subgroup composed of four languages: Araucano, Mapuche, Moluche, and Pehuenche.[11] However, the comparative methods employed by Greenberg are controversial.[23][24] In 1994, Viegas Barros directly contradicted Greenberg's hypothesis and part of Key's, arguing that a connection between the Merindonal subgroup mentioned above and the Mapuche language does not exist.[25] Current linguists reject Greenberg's findings due to methodological concerns and opt instead for more conservative methods of classification.[11] Moreover, many linguists do not accept the existence of an Amerindian language family due to the lack of available information needed to confirm it.
Other authorities such asSIL International classify Mapuche as one of the two languages that form that Araucana family along with Huilliche.[26] However, most current linguists maintain a more conservative stance, classifying Mapuche as a language that remains separated from other indigenous languages of South America while its differences and similarities to them are being studied.[11]
Moulianet al. (2015) argue that thePuquina language influenced Mapuche language long before the rise of theInca Empire.[27] The influence of Puquine is thought to be the reason for the existence of Mapuche-Aymara-Quechuacognates.[27] The following Pre-Incan cognates have been identified by Moulianet al.: sun (Mapudungun:antü,Quechua:inti), moon (Mapudungun:küllen,Quechua:killa), warlock (Mapudungun:kalku,Quechua:kawchu), salt (Mapudungun:chadi,Quechua:cachi) and mother (Mapudungun:ñuque,Quechua:ñuñu).[27] Thisareal linguistic influence may have arrived with a migratory wave arising from the collapse of theTiwanaku Empire around 1000 CE.[27][28]
There is a more recent lexical influence from theQuechuan languages (pataka 'hundred',warangka 'thousand'), associated with theInca Empire, and from Spanish.
As result of Inca rule, there was some Mapudungun–Imperial Quechua bilingualism among the Mapuches ofAconcagua Valley at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 1530s and 1540s.[29]
The discovery of manyChono toponyms inChiloé Archipelago, whereHuilliche, a language closely related to Mapudungun, has been dominant, suggest that Mapudungun displaced Chono there prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the mid-16th century.[30] A theory postulated by chroniclerJosé Pérez García holds that theCuncos settled inChiloé Island inPre-Hispanic times as consequence of a push from more northernHuilliches, who in turn were being displaced byMapuches.[31]
According to Ramírez "more than a dozen Mapuche –Rapa Nuicognates have been described".[32] Among these are the Mapuche/Rapa Nui wordstoki/toki (axe),kuri/uri (black) andpiti/iti (little).[32]
As the 16th and 17th centuryCentral Chile was becoming amelting pot for uprooted indigenous peoples,[33] it has been argued that Mapuche, Quechua and Spanish coexisted there, with significant bilingualism, during the 17th century.[34] However the indigenous language that has influencedChilean Spanish the most is Quechua rather than Mapuche.[34]
In colonial times, many Spanish and Mestizos spoke the Mapuche language. For example, in the 17th century, many soldiers at theValdivian Fort System had some command of Mapuche.[35]
During the 17th and 18th centuries, most ofChiloé Archipelago's population wasbilingual, and according toJohn Byron, many Spaniards preferred to use the localHuilliche language because they considered it "more beautiful".[36] Around the same time,GovernorNarciso de Santa María complained that Spanish settlers in the islands could not speak Spanish properly, but could speak Veliche, and that this second language was more used.[37]
Mapudungun was once the main language spoken in central Chile. The sociolinguistic situation of the Mapuche has changed rapidly. Now, nearly all of Mapuche people are bilingual or monolingual in Spanish. The degree of bilingualism depends on the community, participation in Chilean society, and the individual's choice towards the traditional or modern/urban way of life.[38]
The Chilean Ministry of Education created the Office of Intercultural Bilingual Education in 1996 in an attempt to include indigenous language in education. By 2004, there were still no programs in public schools in Santiago, despite the fact that 50% of the country’s Mapuche population resides in and around the area of Santiago. 30.4% of Mapuche students never graduate eighth grade and they have high rates of poverty. Most language revitalization efforts have been in rural communities and these efforts have been received in different ways by the Mapuche population: Ortiz says some feel that teaching Mapudungu in schools will set their children behind other Chileans, which reveals that their culture has been devalued by the Chilean government for so long that, unfortunately, some Mapuche people have come to see their language as worthless, too, which is a direct and lasting impact of colonization.[39]Despite the absence of Mapudungun instruction in public schools, there are limited language course offerings at select Chilean universities, such asPontifical Catholic University of Chile.[40]
Cladogram showing the closeness of Mapuche dialect sub-groups based on shared features according to Robert A. Croese. Dialect sub-groups are roughly ordered from their geographical distribution from north to south.[41]
These can be grouped in four dialect groups: north, central, south-central and south. These are further divided into eight sub-groups: I and II (northern), III–IV (central), V-VII (south-central) and VIII (southern). The sub-groups III-VII are more closely related to each other than they are to I-II and VIII. Croese finds these relationships as consistent, but not proof, with the theory oforigin of the Mapuche proposed byRicardo E. Latcham.[41]
The Mapudungun spoken in the Argentinian provinces of Neuquen and Río Negro is similar to that of the central dialect group in Chile, while the Ranquel (Rankülche) variety spoken in the Argentinian province of La Pampa is closer to the northern dialect group.[42]
Mapudungun has partially predictable, non-contrastive stress and there is no phonemic tone. The stressed syllable is generally the last one if it is closed (awkán 'game',tralkán 'thunder'), and the penultimate one if the last one is open (lóngko 'head'). In two-syllable words, for example, when bothsyllables are open (ending in a vowel) or both are closed (ending in a consonant), the accent falls on the final syllable. In the case that only one of the two is open, the accent falls on the closed syllable.
Example
iñchiñ 'we'
ruká 'house'
With words that have more than two syllables and have the final two either open or closed, the accent falls on the penultimate syllable. If only one of the two is closed, that one receives the accent.
Sadowsky et al. transcribe the vowels with ⟨ɪ,ɘ,ʊ,ë,ö,ɐ̝⟩.[43] Although other sources may follow the traditional transcription ⟨i,ɨ,u,e,o,a⟩.
In stressed syllables,/ɪ,ʊ/ are near-close[ɪ,ʊ], whereas the mid-/e,o/ are centralized close-mid[ë,ö]. The open vowel is realized as a raised open central[ɐ], making it sound closer to[ɜ] than to[ä]. Unstressed vowels are more close[i,u,ɪ,ʊ,ə] (though unstressed/e,o/ are still somewhat more open than stressed/ɪ,ʊ/). Utterance-final unstressed vowels are generally devoiced or evenelided when they occur after voiceless consonants, sometimes even after voiced consonants.[44]
Traditionally,/ɘ/ has been described as a close central vowel with an unstressed mid-central allophone. According to Sadowsky et al., the vowel is close-mid[ɘ] when stressed and near-close[ɨ̞] when unstressed, patterning phonetically with the mid-series.[45]
The dental series/n̪,t̪,l̪/ is phoneticallyinterdental and occurs only in some dialects.[46]
Utterance-final coronal laterals/l̪,l/ may be devoiced and fricated:[ɬ̪,ɬ].[47]
The plosives may be aspirated. It is often the case with the main allophone of/k/ ([k]). Its fronted allophone[c] is less frequently aspirated, as is the alveolar/t/. When it comes to the dental/t̪/ as well as the bilabial/p/, aspiration is even rarer.[48] For stops, voicing is not a distinctive feature, as well as aspiration.
Some speakers realize/ʈʂ/ as apical postalveolar, either an affricate or an aspirated plosive.[47]
/ɻ/ has been traditionally classified as an approximant; however, Sadowsky et al. prefer to classify it as a fricative[ʐ] as that is the predominant variant in their sample. Other possible variants include a lateral approximant[ɭ] and, in post-nuclear position, a voiceless fricative[ʂ].[49]
Graffiti in Mapudungun meaning "Uprise Meeting...!"
The Mapuche had no writing system before the Spanish arrived, but the language is now written with the Latin script. Although theorthography used in this article is based on theAlfabeto Mapuche Unificado, the system used by Chilean linguists and other people in many publications in the language, the competing Ragileo, Nhewenh and Azumchefi systems all have their supporters, and there is still no consensus among authorities, linguists and Mapuche communities. The same word can look very different in each system, with the word for "conversation or story" being written eithergvxam,gytram, orngütram, for example.[50]
In late 2006, Mapuche leaders threatened to sueMicrosoft when the latter completed a translation of theirWindows operating system into Mapudungun. They claimed that Microsoft needed permission to do so and had not sought it.[51][52] The event can be seen in the light of the greater political struggle concerning thealphabet that should become the standard alphabet of the Mapuche people.
Mapuche is anagglutinative language.[38] Theword order of Mapudungun is flexible, but atopic–comment construction is common. The subject (agent) of a transitive clause tends to precede theverb, and the object tends to follow (A–V–O order); the subject of an intransitive clause tends to follow the verb (V–S order).[38]
Nouns are grouped in two classes, animate and inanimate. For example,pu is a plural indicator for animate nouns andyuka as the plural for inanimate nouns.Chi (orti) can be used as a definite animate article, as inchi wentru 'the man' andchi pu wentru for 'the men'. The numberkiñe 'one' serves as anindefinite article. Subjects and objects use the same case.[53]
Mapudungu uses particles, which is a small group of morphemes that enable the speaker to express how they feel about what they have said. Examples includechi (doubt),am (surprise),nga (regret),llemay (certainty),chemay (amazement),chiam (wonder),amfe (exclamation). There are also more complicated particles such askay, which suggest the information about to be said is in contrast to what was just said. Another complex particle ismay, which is used when the speaker expects to get a positive reaction from what they are saying. One particle,anchi, refers to the subject of the sentence, and an example would be"chem anchi?" which translates to what [is] that (pointed out)?[38]
"An inflection can be added to a noun with -mew or -mu. Thissuffix can refer to time, place, cause or comparison.[38] "An example of this is the sentence
‘On the table is the wood that you should use.’[54]
Numbers from 1 to 10 are as follows: 1kiñe, 2epu, 3küla, 4meli, 5kechu, 6kayu, 7regle, 8pura, 9aylla, 10mari; further numbers include 20epu mari, 30küla mari, 110(kiñe) pataka mari. Numbers are extremely regular in formation, which is comparable toChinese andWolof. Mapuche is apolysynthetic language with noun incorporation and root composition. Broadly speaking this means that words are formed bymorphemeagglutination of lexical elements to the extent that a single word can require a translation that produces a complete sentence.
Possessive pronouns are related to the personal forms:ñi 'my; his, her; their',yu 'our (2)',iñ 'our (more than 2)';mi 'your',mu 'your (2)',mün 'your (more than 2)'. They are often found with a particleta, which does not seem to add anything specific to the meaning:tami 'your'.
Most complex verb formations in Mapudungun are constructed with five or sixmorphemes.[55]
Verbs can be finite or non-finite (non-finite endings:-n,-el,-etew,-lu,-am, etc.), are intransitive or transitive and are conjugated according to person (first, second and third), number (singular, dual and plural), voice (active, agentless passive and reflexive-reciprocal, plus two applicatives) and mood (indicative, imperative and subjunctive). In the indicative, the present (zero) and future (-(y)a) tenses are distinguished. There are a number of aspects: the progressive, resultative and habitual are well established; some forms that seem to mark some subtype of perfect are also found. Other verb morphology includes an evidential marker (reportative-mirative), directionals (cislocative, translocative, andative and ambulative, plus an interruptive and continuous action marker) and modal markers (sudden action, faked action, immediate action, etc.). There is productive noun incorporation, and the case can be made for root compounding morphology.
"Spanish loan verbs have generally been adapted into Mapudungu in the third person singular form. An example is the Mapudungu verb for "to be able" is"pwede," and the Spanish translation for "he can" is"puede."[38]
The indicative present paradigm for an intransitive verb likekonün 'enter' is as follows:
Number
Singular
Dual
Plural
Person
First
konün ( ← kon-n)
koniyu ( ← kon-i-i-u)
koniyiñ ( ← kon-i-i-n)
Second
konimi ( ← kon-i-m-i)
konimu ( ← kon-i-m-u)
konimün ( ← kon-i-m-n)
Third
koni ( ← kon-i-0-0)
koningu ( ← kon-i-ng-u)
koningün ( ← kon-i-ng-n)
What some authors[citation needed] have described as aninverse system (similar to the ones described forAlgonquian languages) can be seen from the forms of a transitive verb likepen 'see'. The 'intransitive' forms are the following:
Number
Singular
Dual
Plural
Person
First
pen ( ← pe-n)
peyu ( ← pe-i-i-u)
peiñ ( ← pe-i-i-n)
Second
peymi ( ← pe-i-m-i)
peymu ( ← pe-i-m-u)
peymün ( ← pe-i-m-n)
Third
pey ( ← pe-i-0-0)
peyngu ( ← pe-i-ng-u)
peyngün ( ← pe-i-ng-n)
The 'transitive' forms are the following (only singular forms are provided here):
When a third person interacts with a first or second person, the forms are direct (without-e) or inverse (with-e); the speaker has no choice. When two third persons interact, two different forms are available. The direct form (pefi) is appropriate when the agent is topical (the central figure in that particular passage). By contrast, the inverse form (peenew) is appropriate when the patient is topical. Thus,chi wentru pefi chi domo means 'the man saw the woman', whilechi wentru peeyew chi domo means something like 'the man was seen by the woman'. However, it is not a passive construction; the passive would bechi wentru pengey 'the man was seen/someone saw the man'. Therefore, a better translation may be 'it was the woman who saw the man' or 'the woman was the one who saw the man'.
The formalization and normalization of Mapudungun was effected by the first Mapudungun grammar published by the Jesuit priestLuis de Valdivia in 1606 (Arte y Gramatica General de la Lengva que Corre en Todo el Reyno de Chile). More important is theArte de la Lengua General del Reyno de Chile by the JesuitAndrés Fabrés (1765, Lima) composed of a grammar and dictionary. In 1776 three volumes in Latin were published inWestphalia (Chilidúgú sive Res Chilenses) by the German JesuitBernhard Havestadt.
The work by Febrés was used as a basic preparation from 1810 for missionary priests going into the regions occupied by the Mapuche people. A corrected version was completed in 1846 and a summary, without a dictionary in 1864.
A work based on Febrés' book is theBreve Metodo della Lingua Araucana y Dizionario Italo-Araucano e Viceversa by the ItalianOctaviano de Niza in 1888. It was destroyed in a fire at the Convento de San Francisco inValdivia in 1928.
The most comprehensive works to date are the ones by Augusta (1903, 1916). Salas (1992, 2006) is an introduction for non-specialists, featuring an ethnographic introduction and a valuable text collection as well. Zúñiga (2006) includes a complete grammatical description, a bilingual dictionary, some texts and an audio CD with text recordings (educational material, a traditional folktale and six contemporary poems). Smeets (1989) and Zúñiga (2000) are for specialists only. Fernández-Garay (2005) introduces both the language and the culture. Catrileo (1995) and the dictionaries by Hernández & Ramos are trilingual (Spanish, English and Mapudungun).
Gramática mapuche bilingüe, byFélix José de Augusta, Santiago, 1903. [1990 reprint by Séneca, Santiago.]
Mapudungun: El habla mapuche. Introducción a la lengua mapuche, con notas comparativas y un CD, byFernando Zúñiga, Santiago: Centro de Estudios Públicos, 2006.ISBN956-7015-40-6
Ana Fernández Garay,Ranquel-español/español-ranquel. Diccionario de una variedad mapuche de la Pampa (Argentina), Leiden: CNWS (Leiden University), 2001.ISBN90-5789-058-5
Arturo Hernández and Nelly Ramos,Mapuche: lengua y cultura. Mapudungun-español-inglés, Santiago: Pehuén, 2005. [5th (augmented) edition of their 1997 dictionary.]
Muñoz Urrutia, Rafael, ed. (2006).Diccionario Mapuche: Mapudungun/Español, Español/Mapudungun (2ª edición). Santiago de Chile: Editorial Centro Gráfico Ltda.ISBN956-8287-99-X.
Sadowsky, Scott; Painequeo, Héctor; Salamanca, Gastón; Avelino, Heriberto (2013)."Mapudungun". Illustrations of the IPA.Journal of the International Phonetic Association.43 (1):87–96.doi:10.1017/S0025100312000369, with supplementary sound recordings.
^Hernández S., Arturo; Ramos P., Nelly (1997).Mapuche: Lengua y Cultura. Translated by Vergara C., Luis; Merino, María Eugenia; Garbarini, Carmen; Barne, William. Pehuén. p. 13.ISBN978-956-16-0769-9.
^abHeggarty, P.; Beresford-Jones, D. (2013). "Andes: linguistic history.". In Ness, I.; P., Bellwood (eds.).The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 401–409.
^Hurtado Cubillos, Luz Marcela (2009). "La expresión de impersonalidad en el español de Chile".Cuadernos de lingüística hispánica (in Spanish).13:31–42.
^Viegas Barros, J. Pedro (1994). La clasificación de las lenguas patagónicas. Revisión de hipótesis del grupo lingüístico "andino meridional" de Joseph H. Greenberg. CINA 15:167:184.
^Gordon, Raymond G. Jr., ed. (2005)."Ethnologue report for Araucanian"(Online).Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.). SIL Publications. p. 1272.Archived from the original on 2007-02-13. Retrieved2021-11-09.
^abcCroese, Robert A. (1985). "21. Mapuche Dialect Survey". In Manelis Klein, Harriet; Stark, Louisa R. (eds.).South American Indian Languages: Retrospect and Prospect. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. pp. 784–801.ISBN0-292-77592-X.
^Guerra idiomática entre los indígenas mapuches de Chile y Microsoft. El Mundo / Gideon Long (Reuters), 28 November 2006[1]Archived 2012-09-12 at theWayback Machine
^(Baker, Mark C. On the Loci of Agreement: Inversion Constructions in Mapudungu. Rutgers University)
^Monson et al. (2004) Data Collection and Analysis of Mapudungun Morphology for Spelling Correction. Language Technologies Institute Carnegie Mellon University.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (2005)Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas (ECPI), 2004–2005 – Primeros resultados provisionales. Buenos Aires: INDEC. ISSN 0327-7968.
† indicates anextinct language,italics indicates independent status of a language,bold indicates that a language family has at least 6 members, * indicates moribund status
