Allentiac language

Allentiac (Alyentiyak), also known as Huarpe (Warpe), is an extinct Huarpean language.^[1][2] It was native to Cuyo in Argentina, but was displaced to Chile in the late 16th century. The language is documented by Luis de Valdivia, a Jesuit missionary, who wrote a grammar, vocabulary and religious texts.^[3][4]

Phonology and orthography

The assessment of Allentiac phonology is tentative and complicated by a lack of explanation on the phonetic value of the symbols used to write the language.^[5]

Vowels

Allentiac had the vowels a, e, i, o, u, ù, the latter also written and probably representing ɨ, thereby having a vowel system reminiscent of that of neighboring Mapudungun. The vowel may not have always been written, resulting in what are apparently word-initial consonant clusters, and an instance of alternation is attested in qtec~qùtec [k(ɨ)tek] 'fire'.^[5]

Consonants

[w] is thought to be represented orthographically by before and before . are "almost certainly" pronounced the same as in Spanish. [k] is written before , before "silent" , and in all other positions. An apparently syllabic lateral is also frequent, such as in lpuù [l̩puɨ] 'finger'. A series of apparent sibilants are written as ; is rather limited in its distribution, found syllable-finally, typically before another consonant (as in taytayes-nen 'I vanquish'), as well as in hussú [husɨ] 'ostrich', is evidently a palatal sibilant [ʃ] due to alternations with as in acasllahue~acaxllahue 'virgin', rather than a velar fricative [x] as assumed by Bartolomé Mitre. is assumed to be a voiced fricative [z], apparently contrasting with the sequence between vowels; elsewhere it may have been voiceless [s]. is tentatively assigned the value [ʒ] as in zhucña [ʒukɲa] 'frog'.^[5]

Morphology

From Valdivia's materials Allentiac may be seen as an agglutinative, predominantly suffixing language, with a "well-defined" series of case markers and postpositions, in contrast to Mapudungun.^[5]

Case

Possession

The person of a possessor may be indicated by attaching the genitive case marker to a singular personal pronoun (cu-ch 'my', ca-ch 'your', and ep-ech 'his'), and by additionally affixing -cha to the pronoun for a plural (ep-cha-ch 'their'), though the plural marker in verb paradigms is -chu.^[5]

Vocabulary

Numerals

Color terms

Color terms in Allentiac are formed by reduplicating an element followed by -niag, as in hom=hom-niag 'black' and zas=zas-niag 'red'.^[5]

Sample text

The Lord's Prayer in Allentiac:

Cvchach Pia chis tactao ta anpen. Cach hene lpucaxetamten. Cach reyno cuchaxtayacten. Cach quilletequiam eltiam ltaten tetata, chis ta mantichquen. Chu tecta cham cuchach cupi quexcheteyag tecta ta. Perxcuxotomte cuchach poyup ta, cuch perxpuxotomta macltichen cuchach aynachanem. Mulxcucolumtche poyup xetuqui xatequepiam. Chu xenec ta quex taynemte. Amen.^[7]

References

1. ^ Canals Frau, Salvador. 1941. La lengua de los Huarpes de San Juan. Anales del Instituto de Etnografía Americana (o Anales del Instituto de Arqueología y Etnología) 2: 43-167. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza.
2. ^ De La Grasserie, Raoul (1901). "De La Langue Allentiak (grammaire, Textes, Vocabulaires)". Journal de la Société des américanistes. 3 (9): 43–100. ISSN 0037-9174
3. ^ Miranda, Fernando Márquez (1943). "Los textos Millcayac del P. Luis de Valdivia. (Con un vocabulario español.-Allentiac- Milcayac)" (in Spanish). Revista del Museo de La Plata. ISSN 2545-6377
4. ^ Chamberlain, Alexander F. (1912). "The Allentiacan, Bororoan, and Calchaquian Linguistic Stocks of South America". American Anthropologist. 14 (3): 499–507. ISSN 0002-7294
5. ^ Adelaar, Willem F. H. & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004-06-10). "The Allentiac language". The Languages of the Andes. 1 ed. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486852.007. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
6. ^ Viegas Barros, J. Pedro (2020). "Los numerales de las lenguas huarpes (allentiac y millcayac)" [The numerals of the Huarpean languages (Allentiac and Millcayac)] (in Spanish). Revista argentina de historiografía lingüística. 12 (2): 169-192.
7. ^ Valdivia, Luis de (1894 [1607]). Doctrina Christiana y catecismo con un confesionario, arte y vocabulario breves en lengua allentiac. Sevilla: E.~Rasco.