Chipaya language

Chipaya
Puquina
Region	Bolivian Andes
Native speakers	unknown (1,200 cited 1995)
Language family	Uru–Chipaya Chipaya
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cap
Glottolog	chip1262

Chipaya is a native South American language of the Uru–Chipaya language family. The only other language in the grouping, Uru, is considered by some to be a divergent dialect of Chipaya. Ethnologue lists the language vitality as "vigorous," with 1200 speakers out of an ethnic population of around 1800. Chipaya has been influenced considerably by Aymara, Quechua, and more recently, Spanish, with a third of its vocabulary having been replaced by those languages.

The Chipayan language is spoken in the area south of Lake Titicaca along the Desaguadero River in the mountains of Bolivia and mainly in the town of Chipaya located in the Sabaya Province of the Bolivian department of Oruro north of Coipasa Salt Flats. Native speakers generally refer to it as Puquina or Uchun Maa Taqu ("our mother language"), but is not the same as the extinct Puquina language. Chipaya is an agglutinative language, though it has features uncommon to most agglutinative languages, according to preliminary research by the organization DOBES.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular
						plain	labialized	plain	labialized
Nasal		m  /m/	n  /n/	ň  /ɲ/		ŋ  /ŋ/
Plosive	plain	p  /p/	t  /t/		č  /c/	k  /k/	kʷ  /kʷ/	q  /q/
	ejective	p'  /pʼ/	t'  /tʼ/		č'  /cʼ/	k'  /kʼ/		q'  /qʼ/
Affricate	plain		¢  /ts/	ch  /tʃ/
	ejective		¢'  /tsʼ/	ch'  /tʃʼ/
Fricative			s  /s/	sh  /ʃ/	š  /ç/	h  /x/	hʷ  /xʷ/	x  /χ/	xʷ  /χʷ/
Approximant			l  /l/	lʲ  /lʲ/	y  /j/		w  /w/

Consonant clusters

Multiple possibilities are separated by slashes, and optional elements are enclosed in parentheses.

Possible syllable onsets are:

• (s/š) + p + (h)
• (s/š/sh) + k/q + (h/hʷ/x/xʷ)
• s/š + p/k/kʷ/q/qʷ/h/hʷ/m/n
• t + h/hʷ/x/xʷ
• ¢/č/ch/l + h

Possible syllable codas are:

• h/x + p/t/k/q/l/lʲ/r + (t)
• hʷ/xʷ + k/q + (t)
• Consonant + t

Vowels

• Vowels have continental values for a, [a], e [e], i [i], o, [o], and u [u]. Each vowel can be short, e.g., a [a], or long, e.g., a• [aː].

External links

• DoBeS - Chipaya Language
• Lilian Porterie Etudes, Audios and Transcriptions of the Chipaya Language