Ayoreo language
Ayoreo | |
---|---|
Native to | Paraguay, Bolivia |
Region | Chaco, Alto Paraguay departments (Paraguay); Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia) |
Ethnicity | Ayoreo people |
Native speakers | 4,700 (2012) |
Zamucoan
| |
Dialects |
|
Official status | |
Official language in | Bolivia |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ayo |
qro Guarañoca | |
Glottolog | ayor1240 Ayoreozamu1245 Zamuco |
ELP | Ayoreo |
Ayoreo is a Zamucoan language spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia. It is also known as Morotoco, Moro, Ayoweo, Ayoré, and Pyeta Yovai. However, the name "Ayoreo" is more common in Bolivia, and "Morotoco" in Paraguay. It is spoken by Ayoreo, an indigenous ethnic group traditionally living on a combined hunter-gatherer and farming lifestyle.
Classification
Ayoreo is classified as a Zamucoan language, along with Chamacoco. Extinct Guarañoca may have been a dialect.
Geographic distribution
Ayoreo is spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia, with 3,100 speakers total, 1700 of those in Paraguay and 1,400 in Bolivia. Within Paraguay, Ayoreo is spoken in the Chaco Department and the northern parts of the Alto Paraguay Department. In Bolivia, it is spoken in the Cordillera Province, in the Santa Cruz Department.
Phonology
Bertinetto (2009) reports that Ayoreo has the 5 vowels /a, e, i, o, u/, which appear both as oral and nasal.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |||
Affricate | t͡ʃ | |||||
Fricative | s | h | ||||
Nasal | voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ɲ̥ | ||
voiced | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
Approximant | ɹ | j | w |
/j/ can also be heard as [dʒ].
Grammar
The prototypical constituent order is subject-verb-object, as seen in the following examples (Bertinetto 2009:45-46):
Sérgio
Sérgio
ch-ingo
3-show
caratai
jaguar
aroi
skin
tome
to
Ramon.
Ramon
‘Sérgio showed the jaguar’s skin to Ramon’.
Enga
COORD
ore
3P
ch-ijnoque
3-carry
Víctor
Víctor
aja
towards
señóra
señora
Emília
Emília
i-guijnai.
house
‘And they carried Víctor to Señora Emília’s house’. Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);
Ayoreo is a fusional language.
Verbs agree with their subjects, but there is no tense-inflection. Consider the following paradigm, which has prefixes marking person and suffixes marking number (Bertinetto 2009:29):
y-aca | I plant |
b-aca | you plant |
ch-aca | he, she, they plant |
y-aca-go | we plant |
uac-aca-y | you (pl) plant |
When the verb root contains a nasal, there are nasalized variants of the agreement affixes:
ñ-ojne | I spread |
m-ojne | you spread |
ch-ojne | he, she, they spread |
ñ-ojne-ngo | we spread |
uac-ojne-ño | you (pl) spread |
Ayoreo is a mood-prominent language. Nouns can be divided into possessable and non-possessable; possessor agreement is expressed through a prefixation. The syntax of Ayoreo is characterized by the presence of para-hypotactical structures.