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Leco language

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Endangered language of Bolivia

Not to be confused withLeko languages.

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Leco
Leko, Rik’a
Burua
Native to	Bolivia
Region	La Paz Department (Bolivia): east ofLake Titicaca
Ethnicity	2,800Leco (2001)^[1]
Native speakers	20 (2012)^[1]^[2]
Language family	Language isolate
Official status
Official language in	Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`lec`
Glottolog	`leco1242`
ELP	Leco
Leco
Leco is classified as Critically Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Leco, also written asLeko, is alanguage isolate that, though long reported to be extinct, is spoken by 20–40 individuals in areas east ofLake Titicaca,Bolivia. TheLeco ethnic population was 13,527 in 2012.^[3]

Classification

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Although Leco is generally considered to be alanguage isolate, Kaufman (1994: 64) groups Leco together with theSechura–Catacao languages as part of a proposedMacro-Lecoan family.^[4] It has also been suggested that Leco might be grouped with the extinctPuquina languages spoken in the south shore ofLake Titicaca.^[5]^[6]

Language contact

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Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with theKulle,Omurano,Taushiro,Urarina,Arawak,Cholon-Hibito,Jaqi, andQuechua language families due to contact.^[7]

History

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Documentation

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Apart from some brief lists of vocabulary, the main document for which Leco is known is a Christian doctrine compiled by the missionary Andrés Herrero at the beginning of the 19th century. That doctrine was published in 1905 by Lafone Quevedo, who used it as a source to make a grammatical description of the language. That work was virtually the only available document about Leco, until the linguist Simon van de Kerke (1994) located some speakers of the language and compiled some additional facts which enlarged the analysis of Quevedo.

Use and description

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In Grimes (1988), Leco is classified as alanguage isolate and is considered extinct. However, Montaño Aragón (1987) found some speakers of the language in the region ofAtén and inApolo, La Paz, inFranz Tamayo Province in theBolivian department ofLa Paz, along Mapiri River inLarecaja Province (situated also in the department of La Paz).

Some speakers were relocated by van de Kerke (1994–97). These speakers, mostly men, were older than 50 years and had not habitually used the language since a long time before that. Van de Kerke relates that the speakers do not feel sufficiently secure to conduct a conversation spontaneously in Leco.

Phonology

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In regard to the phonology of Leco, one can point out the following:^[8]

Vowels

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Leco has six vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /è/. The opposition among the first five vowels is distinguished in the data, but the opposition between /e/ and /è/ is found only in a limited number of words, as for examplepele 'balsa' andpèlè 'name of plant'.

		Bilabial		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		voiceless	voiced	voiceless	voiced	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	p	b	t	d		k
	aspirated	pʰ		tʰ			kʰ
	ejective	pʼ		tʼ			kʼ
Affricate	plain			t͡s		t͡ʃ
Affricate	ejective					t͡ʃʼ
Fricative				s	z			h
Nasal		m		n		ɲ⟨ng⟩
Approximant			w	l		j
Flap				ɾ

Verbal root	PROG	NEG	NML/N/ADJ	PL	CID	AUX	PAS	DCL/INT	Person
									-o
			Adj/N					-t	-m/-n
				-aya	-mono	-ka	-taah
V	-cha	-in	-no					-ne	-am/-an
		-ir	-a						-no(h)
			-ich						-s

gloss	Leco
one	ver
two	foi
three	chishai
head	barua
eye	bisiri
hand	bu-eú
woman	chusna
water	dua
sun	heno
maize	ta

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Classification

Language contact

History

Documentation

Use and description

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Morphology

Speech

Lexicon

Word classes

Vocabulary

References

External links