Adelaar Willem, Muysken Pieter. The languages of the Andes
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
574 6 The languages of Tierra del Fuego
(48) s´an t´eynikɑɑ at´ama ´erli
[cf. English early]
2.PL it.is.necessary eat early
‘You must eat early.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 42)
The following tense and mood markers occur, as verbal suffixes:
(49) -oan -ona -oa -on -o future
-te -ute -ote -ite -utey past I
-ɑɑrɑɑ -arɑɑ past II
-ina -oyna -wina 2nd person imperative
The forms in (49) are given by Golbert de Goodbar (1977, 1985: 422). She distinguishes
two types of future marking – ona and oa – without being able to differentiate them
semantically. Given the other forms encountered, however, it is likely that we are dealing
with allomorphs here. In Bridges (1894) future is indicated by -(y)u:a or -o:a, past by
-ude: or -ara / -
ra, and imperative by -i:na.
In the present, there is no tense marking, and generally timeless statements are also
without marking, as are infinitives. Often, past tense is not marked overtly either. It is
not clear from the texts what the difference is between the te tense and the
ɑ
r
ɑ
tense;
both are simply glossed and translated as past tenses.
There is also a set of aspectual suffixes, related to motion particles, described by
Golbert de Goodbar (1985: 422):
(50) -k´ata ‘arrive / continuative’
-tikila ‘make steps / imprecision, movement’
-y´ata ‘lie down / durative, stative’
When the subject is third person (generally a full noun phrase), the verb tends to be
inflected, through a prefix:
(51) ´anˇci yɑɑˇs´ɑɑ
la-n-t´an ka-wunors´ın-ote l ´ɑɑkɑɑx
that dog-LK-PL 3S-bark-PA night
‘Those dogs barked last night.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 9)
With first- and second-person pronominal subjects, it rarely is:
(52) h´ay tɑɑn-k´ata n´ayf
[cf. English knife]
1.SG have-CN knife
‘I have a knife.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 13)
Table 6.11 summarises the distribution of pronouns and inflection in the sentences pre-
sented in the materials in Golbert de Goodbar (1977), disregarding structures involving
6.4 Linguistic features 575
Table 6.11 Person inflection in Yahgan (based on
the materials in Golbert de Goodbar 1977)
noun (phrase) 3-V 21
noun (phrase) (3) ∅-V 5
null 3-V 3
pronoun 1, 2-V 5
pronoun (1, 2) ∅-V 33
null 1, 2-V 5
null ∅-V 2
modals. The subject can remain empty, e.g. with expletive subjects or with weather
verbs:
(53) he´ın k´uka s´at´eri
very like 2.SG cold
‘It seems you are cold.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 12)
(54) t´u
la p´alax´ana ur´atur k-ayn-´ona
if rain few 3S-come-F
‘If it rains, few people will come.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 25)
Similarly with pronominal subjects in certain discourse contexts:
(55) h´ay t´u
la t´eke ha-t-ay-´ona
1.SG if see 1S.SG-3O-call-F
‘I will call him if (I) see (him).’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 58)
The basic word order of Yahgan is rather difficult to determine from the data in
Golbert de Goodbar (1977). Yahgan basically has subject–auxiliary–verb–object order,
with some variations. The system in the noun phrase is predominantly head-final
(56a–c), although some determiners can optionally occur postnominally, as shown
in (57):
(56) a. wɑɑl´ıˇcy´ɑɑhɑɑ good boy ‘good boy’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 7)
b. ´anˇci y´amana that man ‘that man’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 8)
c. h´awa t´uko 1P.SG wife ‘my wife’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 8)
576 6 The languages of Tierra del Fuego
(57) yɑɑˇs´ɑɑ
la ´anˇci
dog that
‘that dog’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 8)
There are two prepositions, t´esa ‘like’ and y´en
ɑ
‘in, at, on’, glossed here as locative (L):
(58) a. h´aw ´uˇska p´ak´ukan t´esa sin´a
1P.SG clothes not equal like 2P.SG
‘My clothes are not like yours.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 51)
b. h´aw ´uˇska y´enɑɑ p´okˇs [cf. English box]
1P.SG clothes L box
‘My clothes are in the box.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 52)
Postpositions are much more common, however:
(59) a. y´ɑɑmuhkɑɑ st ´uwɑɑk´ata h´awan t ´ɑɑw
lo
far city here from
‘The city is far from here.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 53)
b. ant ´ɑɑpa ps´ıy´enɑɑ s´ospi
meat without L pot
‘There is no meat in the pot.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 54)
c. l´ɑɑkɑɑxt´ɑɑrɑɑ t´eynik h´ıpay ´una ´utɑɑˇs
night during it.is.necessary 1.D walk slowly
‘At night we must walk slowly.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 55)
Subordinate clauses always occur to the right of the matrix clause:
(60) h´ay k´atak-´oa sn ´ɑɑtin p ´ɑɑlɑɑx´ana
[cf. English it is nothing]
1.SG go.out-F although rain
‘I will go out even though it rains.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 57)
Conjunctions, such as t´eke ‘that’(?< Spanish de que ‘that’), ´asta ‘until’ (< Spanish
hasta), and t´u
la ‘if’ precede their clause:
(61) a. h´ay k ´uru t´eke s´aat´ama
1.SG want that 2.SG eat
‘I want you to eat.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 57)
6.4 Linguistic features 577
b. x
w
an k- ´ɑɑkɑɑŋŋ-k´ata ´asta s´a mat´amati
Juan 3.SG-sleep-CN until 2.SG arrive
‘Juan is asleep till you arrive.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 57)
c. h´ay t´u
la t´eke ha-t-ay-´ona
1.SG if see 1S.SG-3O-call-F
‘I will call him if I see (him).’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 58)
Adverbs either follow or precede the verb phrase:
(62) x
w
´an ka-tup´oan-ote ´ɑɑwi ´utɑɑˇs
Juan 3.SG-throw-PA stone slowly
‘Juan threw the stone slowly.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 45)
(63) h´ɑɑrˇsp´okˇsu t´ato [cf. English horse]
horse fast run
‘Horses run fast.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 37)
The fundamental order of object and verb is likewise not unproblematic. Generally
objects follow the verb, both in main clauses and in subordinate clauses:
(64) s´an at- ´ɑɑrɑɑ m´ani p´oket-n t´aw
lo [cf. English money, pocket]
you.PL take-PA money pocket-LK from
‘You (plur.) took money from the pocket.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 28)
(65) x
w
´an ka-k´alek-´arɑɑ p´edro-n-ˇci.k´a: akup´ana h´awan yɑɑs´ɑɑ
la
Juan 3.SG-order-PA Pedro-LK-AC kill 1P.SG dog
‘Juan ordered Pedro to kill my dog.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 36)
There are a number of object–verb sequences, however:
(66) lam´ay´amana h´a-k´a: ka-kɑɑsit´at-ote
drunk man 1.SG-AC 3.SG-accompany-PA
‘The drunk accompanied me.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 27)
(67) h´awa t´uku w´ata kɑɑ-k´atak-ute uˇsk´at´ukˇsi p´ay
1P.SG wife before 3.SG-go-PA clothes wash for
‘My wife went (away) to wash clothes.’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1977: 56)
It is not clear from the texts what causes this alternation. The cases where the
object precedes the verb include indefinite noun phrases (without determiner) and
pronouns.
578 6 The languages of Tierra del Fuego
Question words include the following:
(68) k´ana/kan ‘who’
kan´ı ‘of whom, with whom’
k´unˇci ‘which’
k´unˇci pl´eys ‘where’
[cf. English place]
kunt´a ‘which, how, which class of’
k´owtu ‘what, what kind of’
Questioned elements tend to be fronted, but this does not appear to be obligatory:
(69) sin ´uˇska kunt´a-m ´alak´ana
2P.SG clothes how-LK look
‘What did your clothes look like?’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1978: 20)
(70) k´unˇci pl´eys tumu-t´atata aˇs´ukar
which place CA-buy sugar
‘Where do they sell sugar?’
(Golbert de Goodbar 1978: 20)
This concludes our very brief sketch of Yahgan. A more detailed analysis, particularly
of the very rich nineteenth-century materials, including New Testament translations and
the Bridges dictionary, will be very worthwhile.
6.4.4 Areal-typological features of the Fuegian languages
The question arises, naturally, whether Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia are one linguistic
family and, if not, form a linguistic area. These questions need a more careful treatment
than is possible here, where we can only make a few preliminary observations. More
complete descriptions and more detailed comparative studies are needed before we can
draw a firm conclusion. Nonetheless, Clairis (1998: 24) ventures the hypothesis that all
the languages in the area are related. He stresses the shared phonological characteristics
of the Fuegian languages, presented in table 6.12. These inventories are fairly similar in
terms of the number of vowels and consonants distinguished, although there are differ-
ences in the actual inventories, and the data in Adam suggest that the original systems may
have been more divergent than what we encounter in the recent sources. Voiced and glot-
talised consonants are present but not widespread, and retroflex articulations are not fre-
quent. These data do not differentiate between areal and genetic relations by themselves.
A similar general superficial correspondence is evident in the morphologies shown in
table 6.13, where suffixation and encliticisation are widespread, as well as compound-
ing and reduplication. Prefixation and procliticisation are also present in a number of
languages, while suppletion appears to be rare. A big caveat here is that much more
detailed morphological analysis is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
6.5 Linguistic features 579
Table 6.12 Phonological features of the Fuegian languages
*
Chono Kawesqar Yahgan Selk
nam G¨un¨una Yajich Tehuelche
#C 19 20/21 15/31 21 30 25
#V 6 3/6 6/12 6 7/8 6
Syl CVVC CCVVCC CCVVC CCVCCC CVVC CCVCC
*
#C = number of consonant phonemes; #V = number of vowel phonemes; Syl = maximal
syllabic complexity
Table 6.13 Morphological features of the Fuegian languages
Chono Kawesqar Yahgan Selk
nam G¨un¨una Yajich Tehuelche
Suffix ++ + + + +
Prefix −− + + + +
Proclitic −− + + ? +
Enclitic ++ + + ? +
Compounding ? ++++ +
Suppletion ? −+−− −
Reduplication ++ + ? + ?
Table 6.14 Constituent order features of the Fuegian languages (NP = noun
phrase; P = postposition)
Chono Kawesqar Yahgan Selk
nam G¨un¨una Yajich Tehuelche
Postpositional NP P NP P NP P NP P NP P NP P
phrase
Noun phrase ? AJ N AJ N N AJ N AJ N AJ
Clause OVS/SOV SOV SVO/SOV OVS VOS/SVO SOV
Turning now to the word order of the languages of Tierra del Fuego, again there are
certain widespread basic word-order patterns, as shown in table 6.14. Most languages
appear to be of the OV type, but the position of the subject varies considerably, and
table 6.14 oversimplifies matters somewhat.
While these observations certainly tend to underline the similarities between these
languages, it would be premature to conclude on their basis that we are dealing with a
linguistic area here. A wider range of more specific features needs to be compared for
this cluster of languages.
580 6 The languages of Tierra del Fuego
6.5 Oral literature
There is a rich tradition of oral literature for most of the groups mentioned. Wilbert’s
work includes edited English-language versions of the folk tales collected by Martin
Gusinde in the 1920s among the Selk
nam (Wilbert 1975) and Yahgan (Wilbert 1977).
Wilbert and Simoneau (1984) bring together Tehuelche folk tales from a wide variety of
sources, mostly Argentinian, and the publication of a volume of Kawesqar folk literature
is announced. A collection of Tehuelche texts with translation and notes is available in
Fern´andez Garay (1997b).
Guyot (1968) analyses and compares Selk
nam and Yahgan myths, again on the basis
of the Gusinde materials, within the tradition of L´evi-Strauss. She notes the many par-
allels between the mythology of these unrelated but neighbouring peoples, suggesting
prolonged cultural contact.
6.6 Language contact
Reports about contacts between the canoe nomads are mixed. Gusinde (1937: 233–
46) argues that geographical conditions inhibited contacts between the Yahgan and
their neighbours: Kawesqar in the west, and Haush and Selk
nam in the east. Only in
late colonial times were contacts more frequent. Viegas Barros (1993) argues that the
amount of linguistic borrowing suggests much closer ties between the Selk
nam and
the Kawesqar than between the Selk
nam and the Yahgan. There was barter of artifacts
and raw materials, and some exchange marriages. Knowledge of each other’s language
was limited and rare, however. Eastern Yahgan took over some Selk
nam words, and the
reverse happened as well. The Selk
nam were driven into Yahgan territory during the
extermination raids of the late nineteenth century.
Contacts between the Yahgan and the Kawesqar were somewhat more frequent, in
part because both groups had a similar economic basis. Lucas Bridges ([1948] 1987: 61)
suggests that there were incidental marriages between the Kawesqar and the Yahgan in the
latter half of the nineteenth century, and reports cases of Yahgan–Kawesqar bilingualism
(1987: 131). Bilingualism was rare, however. There was no occasion for barter. Gusinde
(1931: 142–3) notes that meetings between the Selk
nam and the Kawesqar were rather
more frequent, but again limited to barter. There was no evidence of people knowing the
language of the other groups, except for some borrowings. Lucas Bridges (1948: 132),
however, mentions an encounter with Chono speakers where one Kawesqar knew that
language.
5
The foot nomads showed more evidence of multilingualism. The Tehuelche moved
around in a large territory, and intermarried with Mapuche and Europeans of different
5
We are indebted to H´el`ene Brijnen for calling our attention to this passage in Bridges’s book.
6.6 Language contact 581
nationalities. At one point, some Tehuelches knew Spanish, Mapuche, G¨un¨una Yajich
and Teushen in addition to Tehuelche. D’Orbigny mentions one quadrilingual Tehuelche
woman, Lunareja, around 1830 (d’Orbigny 1945). Fern´andez Garay (1998c: 49–50)
stresses the fact that linguistic taboo, the prohibition among the Tehuelche of using
words resembling the name of a deceased person for a year, may have stimulated linguistic
borrowing.
Viegas Barros (to appear b) interprets a word list collected by Olivier van Noort
in the Strait of Magellan in 1599, arguing that it represents the speech of a group
of foot nomads who had adopted (or possibly maintained from an earlier period) ca-
noe transport, and while speaking a Chonan language, adopted a number of Kawesqar
words.
The mirror image of this group is that of a group of Kawesqar living on the Brunswick
Peninsula who had adopted part of the foot nomad culture and a number of Tehuelche
words in the nineteenth century (Viegas Barros, to appear b). Viegas Barros argues on
the basis of a number of borrowings and of a shared term for the Kawesqar in Selk
nam
and Tehuelche that contacts between the foot and canoe nomads must have dated back
to prehistoric times.
Summing up, the various forms of contacts in the whole region reported (sometimes
without much substantiation) by the various authors took the form of:
– mixed marriages, particularly in the late colonial period;
– barter between the Selk
nam on one side and the Yahgan or Kawesqar on
the other;
– slaving raids (e.g. by the Chono in Kawesqar territory);
– shared fishing grounds (e.g. between the Kawesqar and the Yahgan);
– capture of Kawesqar women by the Tehuelche;
– migration of groups of Selk
nam across the Strait of Magellan and integra-
tion of the latter into the Tehuelche,
– migration of Tehuelches across the Strait of Magellan;
– extensive migration of Mapuche Indians into Patagonia.
Europeans were first looked upon with some awe, and were later much hated and
despised. Gusinde reports that Europeans were called palala by the Yahgan. Bridges
(1894) gives as the meaning of a possibly related word upalalana ‘to make a noise by
vibrating the tongue in the mouth violently’; thus the term would refer to the incompre-
hensible way of speaking of Europeans. Another possible source is patalsala, according
to Gusinde, which means something like ‘incomprehensible people’. In any case, it is
clear that the contacts with the Europeans meant the end of the peoples and languages
of Tierra del Fuego.
We now turn to the effect these contacts had on the languages of the area. It should
be clear that what follows is highly tentative, incomplete and preliminary. Much more
582 6 The languages of Tierra del Fuego
work is needed, for instance, on the lexical influence that the different languages had on
each other.
Both Yahgan and Kawesqar contain a substantial number of European borrowings.
Yahgan tends to have borrowed more from English than from Spanish, Kawesqar almost
exclusively from Spanish. English borrowings in Yahgan include: m´aykl ‘Michael’,
m´ari ‘Mary’, p´eyper ‘paper’, n´ayf ‘knife’, h´arˇs ‘horse’, m´ani ‘money’, pl´eys ‘place’,
k´
ɑ
rp
ɑ
nt
ɑ
r ‘carpenter’, ´erli m´oni
ŋ
‘early morning’, l´ıf ‘leaf’. Spanish borrowings include
x
w
´an ‘John’, aˇs´ukar ‘sugar’, r´uta ‘route’, w
ɑ
l´ıˇc ‘good’, and m´aytro ‘teacher’.
Particularly in the case of Kawesqar, words have been extensively adapted phono-
logically. Words largely, but not exclusively, refer to borrowed culture items. In the
Kawesqar texts in Clairis (1987) only borrowed nouns appear, while in the Yahgan
material in Golbert de Goodbar (1977) we find conjunctions as well:
(71) b´ɑɑt ‘but’
[English but]
sn ´ɑɑtin ‘even though’ [English it is nothing]
bif´or ‘before that’ [English before]
i ‘and’ [Spanish y]
o ‘or’ [Spanish o]
´asta ‘until’ [Spanish hasta]
p´orke ‘because’ [Spanish porque]
Remarkably, no elements have been incorporated as verbs or prepositions, with the
possible exception of the modal operator t´eynik(
ɑ
) ‘obligation’, which could be derived
from Spanish tiene que ‘has to’.
G¨un¨una Yajich contains a number of Mapuche and Spanish borrowings. Tehuelche
and G¨un¨una Yajich have taken over the Aymara words for ‘hundred’ and ‘thousand’
from the Araucanians.
Casamiquela speculates that the G¨un¨una Yajich word order he recorded from the last
speaker of the language was influenced by Mapuche, and Viegas Barros (1995) suggests
that the orginal person system of the Chonan languages has been restructured under the
influence of Mapuche. Fern´andez Garay (1998c) gives a very detailed description of
processes of language attrition that have affected Tehuelche.
6.7 ATehuelche text
Several spontaneous texts have been published in the languages of Tierra del Fuego.
We include here a southern Tehuelche flood myth, part of the Elal cycle, told shortly
after 1920 by K’opach¨us to J. C. Wolf, who ‘called himself encargado of the Linguistics
section of the Museo de la Plata’ (G. Hern´andez 1992: 115). The myth is reproduced
in G. Hern´andez (1992: 132–3, 138). Below the original orthography in the source
text we present in curly brackets an approximate phonetic rendition and analysis, based
6.7 A Tehuelche text 583
on Fern´andez Garay (1997b, 1998c, personal communication). Casamiquela (1992)
provided additional notes.
1. Tsh´onke tsh´aink’ t¨a
Rnk¨ak!¨a-u;
{ˇc’o:nk ˇc’ay-n-k ter-n-k k’ew}
people be.big-N-MS be.tall-N-MS formerly
‘They were tall, big people formerly.’
2. m´atshke tschonk, t!¨a
Rosh
{ma:-ˇs-k’e ˇc’o:nk t’ero-ˇs}
kill-PD-RD.MS
6
people be.bad-PD
‘They were man-killers and bad.’
3. m´ashke tsh´onkie, w´ıllum n´au ´oiyu,
{ma:-ˇs-k’e ˇc’o:nk, welom na:w ʔoyo}
kill-PD-RD.MS people all guanaco ostrich
‘They killed people. All the guanaco, the ostrich,’
4. tsh´a
Ro
7
´oienkl, m´ashke tsh´onke.
{k’aroʔʔoygl ma:-ˇs-k’e ˇc’o:nk}
hawk condor kill-PD-RD.MS people
‘the hawk, the condor used to kill people.’
5. K’¨anuknk’on d´ıos tsh´ait g´atken¨ashke,
{qenkenk’en dios ˇc’ay-t(o) ga:nkene-ˇs-k’e}
sun god be.big-AV be.angry-PD-RD.MS
‘The Sun God became very angry’
6. k¨a-´ut¨ashk¨al¨a-¨at¨a
Rnk¨a.
{k-e:wet’e-ˇs-k’e leʔ ter-n-k}
3O.MS-send-PD-RD.MS water be.high-N-MS
‘and sent a big flood.’
7.
´
O-ukt¨aw´anken x´ono sh¨ahuen k’¯on l¨a-¨a´aintke,
{ʔe:w-k’ t-waʔn-k’n xono ˇsanwen
8
k’o:n leʔʔayn-t-k’e}
upward-AL 3S-go-RD.NU sea spring river water rise-MD-RD.MS
‘Upwards came the sea, the springs and rivers; the water rose,’
8. willum tsh´a
R¨ak¨an g¨a-ut¨a. Willom x´amtsh.
{welom t-ˇsa:re-k’n ge:wte welom xa:m-ˇc}
all 3S-be.filled-RD.NU land all die-PL
‘until all the land was covered. Then they all died.’
6
The endings of the realis mood (RD) encode a gender distinction; the gender indicated is that of
a following noun (Fern´andez Garay 1998c: 275).
7
The form tsh´aRo (probably [ˇc’arroʔ]) may represent a dialectal variant of k’aroʔ ‘hawk’.
8
Both the pronunciation and interpretation of sh¨ahuen are incertain. The word ˇsanwen ‘whirlpool’,
mentioned in Fern´andez Garay (1998c: 98), seems to fit the context here.