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Kunza
Atacameño, Ckunsa
Likanantaí,Ckunsa
Native to	Chile,Peru,Bolivia
Region	Atacama Desert
Ethnicity	2,000Atacama
Extinct	after 1964?[1]
Revival	2020s
Language family	Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kuz
Glottolog	kunz1244
Possible historic geographical extent of the Kunza language[1]
Atacameño is classified as Extinct by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Kunza (Kunza:Likanantaí) is a mostly extinct and revitalizinglanguage isolate spoken in theAtacama Desert of northernChile and southernPeru by theAtacama people, who have since shifted toSpanish. The last speaker was documented in 1964; however, it has since been learned that the language is still spoken in the desert.^{[2][clarification needed]}

Other names and spellings includeCunza,Ckunsa,Likanantaí,Lipe,Ulipe, andAtacameño. The wordCkunsa means 'our' in Kunza.^[3]

From what data is available, it is believed that it was apolysynthetic language. However, there is not sufficient information to determine which languages it was related to, if any. Thus, it is conventionally classified as a language isolate.

The language was spoken in northern Chile, specifically in the Chilean villages of Peine,Socaire (near theSalar de Atacama), andCaspana, and in southern Peru.

The last Kunza speaker was found in 1949, although there are reports of some having been found in 1953 according to anthropologists.^[4] Loukotka (1968) reports a few speakers in Bolivia and in the village of Peine in Chile.^[1] There are 2,000Atacameños as of 2004.^[5]

A revitalization effort was initiated in the 21st century.^[6]

Kaufman (1990) found a proposed connection between Kunza and the likewise unclassifiedKapixaná to be plausible;^[7] however, the language was more fully described in 2004, and the general consensus among linguists was that both languages are isolates.^[8]

Unattested varieties listed by Loukotka (1968):^[1]

• Atacameño of Bolivia – spoken in a small village on the frontier ofPotosí Department, Bolivia, andAntofagasta Province of Chile
• Lipe (Olipe) – extinct language once spoken south of theSalar de Uyuni,Potosí Department, Bolivia

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with theMochika,Kandoshi,Jaqi,Kechua,Mapudungun, andUru-Chipaya language families due to contact.^[9]

The vocabulary of Kunza is well-documented, but the phonetic realizations of lexical transcriptions are not so certain due to the widely differing systems of transcription that were used. Because of this, the accepted phonologic system for Kunza is tentative, and potentially even speculation. Even so, it is well known that the stops and affricates were distinguished between plain and glottalized (the latter being represented by a doubled consonant in some transcriptions, even in initial position).

/w/ is only present in loanwords./kʼ/ and/qʼ/ are not directly attested, but are presumed to have been present based on data collected in 1981. Velar and uvular sounds are not consistently distinguished in the data.

The use of doubled vowels in transcriptions suggest the existence of a contrast oflength. Very few words begin with a vowel, almost all of them being non-lexical grammatical words. The only vowels possible in initial position are/ai/.

According to the work of Vaïsse, Peyró, Schuhmacher and Adelaar, the following schema can be proposed:

Note thatikot corresponds to the relativei with the plural marker-kot. The forms with the addedabsolutive case suffix would be:aqʼa, kuna, čʼema, čime, ia, ikota.

Note that the possessive marker is the suffix-sa, which is added directly to the roots of the personal pronouns.

San Román proposed a different way of marking possession, by means of prefixes added to the possessed object. The phonetic realizations are only hypothetical:

According to this system, the possessive is marked in a way demonstrated in the following table, using the wordstikʼan (father) andlokma (dog) as examples. Note that the final suffix-ia is acopula.

San Román also proposed a system of conjugation that is exemplified with the verbyokontur (to speak) in the following table:

In 1867,Johann Jakob von Tschudi collected two versions of the prayerOur Father in Kunza.

• Macro-Paesan languages

• Kunza Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary'sSwadesh list appendix)
• Spanish-Kunza dictionary online
• Bibliography about Kunza
• Alain Fabre, 2005,Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: KUNZA[1]
• Kunza (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)

• Indigenous languages of the Andes
• Atacama Desert
• Languages of Chile
• Extinct languages of South America
• Languages extinct in the 1950s
• Language isolates of South America
• Macro-Paesan languages
• Ataguitan languages

• Articles containing Kunza-language text
• CS1 maint: location missing publisher
• CS1 maint: publisher location
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing translation from Spanish Wikipedia
• Extinct ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2025
• Pages with plain IPA