Gününa Küne language

Gününa Küne
Gennaken, Puelche
Gününa Küna, Günün a yajüch
Pronunciation	[gɨnɨna kɨnə] [gɨnɨn a jaxətʃ]
Native to	Argentina
Region	Río Negro
Ethnicity	Puelches, ?Chechehet
Extinct	1960
Language family	Chonan Puelche–Het? Gününa Küne
Dialects	?Chechehet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pue
Glottolog	puel1244
ELP
Map of the Gününa Küne language
Gününa Küne is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

pwel "east"
People	Gününa künä (Puelche)
Language	Gününa yajüch
Country	Pwelmapu

Gününa Küne (Puelche) is an extinct language formerly spoken by the Gününa Küne people in the Pampas region of Argentina. The language is also known as Gennaken (Guenaken), Northern Tehuelche, Gününa Yajüch, Ranquelche, Septentrional Austral Tehuelche and Pampa. It may also have been spoken by the Chechehet.

Classification

The Puelche River, named after the group, the river flows into the Maule River

Gününa Küne has long been considered a language isolate. Based on very limited evidence, Viegas Barros (1992) suggested that Gününa Küne might be closely related to the poorly known Querandí language, one of the Het peoples, and Viegas Barros (2005) said that it is related to the Chon languages. Further afield, inclusion in a putative Macro-Jibaro family has been posited.

Documentation

In 1829, D'Orbigny toured the area of southern Buenos Aires and the mouth of the Río Negro. There he collected words of the "Puelches', "Aucas' and "Tehuelches' —that is, in Günün a Iajüch, Mapuzungun and Teushen, respectively—in the vicinity of Carmen de Patagones, in a permanent settlement of linguistically heterogeneous groups.

The French traveler, intrigued by the indigenous languages of the area, arrived at the tolderías and contacted some interpreters:

"In a tent of friendly Patagonians I found a woman named Lunareja who spoke enough Spanish as if to serve as an interpreter; belonged to the Puelche nation and was married to a Patagonian, so that I knew both languages equally, which was of the greatest use to me. I also knew Araucanian, but the notions of this language could be better transmitted to me by the Indians."

In L'Homme américain (de l'Amérique méridionale) he includes some comments on which highlights pronunciation features, the use of the morpheme ya- prefixed to the parts of the body, the numbering system or the absence of gender markings on adjectives, as well as a list of words that compares with those of other languages of South America.

Studies of Gününa yajüch

In 1864, Hunziker recorded a vocabulary and a collection of phrases from a language called Genakenn in the Viedma region. In 1865, the explorer Jorge Claraz traveled from south of Buenos Aires to Chubut being guided by individuals who spoke Gününa iajëch, collecting the names of places, words and sentences in his Diario de viaje de exploración al Chubut (Chubut exploration travel diary) (1865–1866).

In 1913, Lehmann Nitsche used the data collected by Hunziker and Claraz to create a comparative vocabulary of Tehuelche languages: El grupo lingüístico tschon de los territorios magallánicos (The Chonan Linguistic Groups of the Magellanic Territories).

In 1925, Harrington gathered words from bilingual Tehuelche speakers which he published in 1946 in Contribución al estudio del indio gününa küne (A Contribution to the Study of the Gününa küne Indian), claiming that they called their language Gününa yájitch or Pampa. During the 1950s, Casamiquela collected vocabulary, songs and prayers from various elders, outlining a morphosyntactic analysis.

In 1960, Ana Gerzenstein made a phonetic and phonological classification in her Fonología de la lengua gününa-këna (Phonology of the Gününa-këna Language).

In 1991, José Pedro Viegas Barros outlined a morphosyntactic projection in Clarificación lingüística de las relaciones interculturales e interétnicas en la región pampeano-patagónica (Linguistic Clarification of Intercultural and Inter-ethnic Relations in the Pampas-Patagonian Region), and in 2005 he developed a phonological description in Voces en el viento (Voices in the Wind).

Puelche is a dead language. Casamiquela released the first and last name of the last Puelche speaker: José María Cual, who died in 1960 at the age of 90.

Phonology

Vowels

Gününa Küne has 7 vowels:

	Front	Back
	Unrounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i	ɯ	u
Close-mid	e	ɤ	o
Open-mid		ʌ
Open	a

A short sounding /e/ is realized as [ɛ].

Consonants

Gününa Küne has 25 consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiceless	p	t			k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ	(qʼ)
	voiced	b	d			ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʂ	t͡ʃ
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡ʂʼ	t͡ʃʼ
Fricative			s	ʂ	ʃ	x		h
Lateral	voiceless		ɬ
	voiced		l		ʎ
Rhotic	trill		r
	tap		ɾ
Semivowel					j	w

It is not clear if there is a uvular ejective stop [qʼ].

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Gennaken.

gloss	Gennaken
one	chéye
two	päch
ear	chütsk
tooth	xaye
hand	yapal
foot	yapgit
sun	apiúkük
moon	apioxok
dog	dáshü

Comparative vocabulary

Below there is a list of comparative vocabulary between Chonan languages; Gününa Küne, Teushen, Selkʼnam, Tehuelche, and Haush, as well as Moseten languages; Chimane and Mosetén.

	Chon					Mosetén
English	Gününa Küne	Teushen	Selkʼnam	Tehuelche	Haush	Chimane	Mosetén
one	chéye	cheuquen	sôs	chochieg	setaul	irit	irit
two	päch	xeukay	sôki	h'áuke	aim	pana	pára
three	gütʳsh	keash	sauke	ká'ash	shaucn	chibin	chibin
four	málǖ, mālǖ	kekaguy	koni-sôki	kague		tsis
five	tān’kǖ, tan’kü	keytzum	kismarei	k'tsáen		cánam
six	thrüman, tshüman	wenecash	kari-koni-soki	uaenecash		ebeuñ
seven	katʳshpetsh; katrshpitsh	kuka	kari-kísmarei	aiéké		yevetige
eight	pūúsha	wenekekague	karikei-konisoki	venik'cage		quencañ
nine	tsheyiba, tshiība	kekaxetzum	kauken-kísmarei	yamakeitzen		arajatec
ten	ts’amátskǚ	xaken	karai-kísmarei	kaken		tac

See also

• Boreal Pehuelche

External links

• Gününa Küne language dictionary online from IDS (select simple or advanced browsing)
• WALS: Puelche
• Gününa Küne (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)