Cholón language

Cholón (Cholona), also known as Seeptsá and Tsinganeses, is a language of Peru. It was spoken near Uchiza,[1][2] from Tingo María to Valle in the Huallaga River valley of Huanuco and San Martín regions.[3]

Cholón
Seeptsá
Native toPeru
RegionHuallaga River valley
Native speakers
Only one native speaker (2021)
Hibito–Cholon ?
  • Cholón
Language codes
ISO 639-3cht
Glottologchol1284

The language was previously thought to be extinct but a native speaker was discovered in 2021. Martha Pérez Valderrama is believed to be the last remaining speaker of Cholón.[4]

Phonology

Due to the amateur Spanish pronunciation spellings used to transcribe Cholon, its sound inventory is uncertain. The following is an attempt at interpreting them (Adelaar 2004:464).

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive p t k ʔ
Affricate ts tʃ
Fricative s ʃ h
Approximant w l ʎ, j

The vowels appeared to have been similar to Spanish [a e~ɪ i o~ʊ u].

Grammar

Cholon distinguishes masculine and feminine grammatical gender in the second person. That is, one used different forms for "you" depending on whether one was speaking to a man or a woman:

katsok'house'
aktsok'my house'
miktsok'your house' (speaking to a man)
piktsok'your house' (speaking to a woman)
intʃamma'what did you say?' (speaking to a man)
intʃampa'what did you say?' (speaking to a woman)

References
Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Cholón word list
  1. Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
  2. "Cholon | The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America". ailla.utexas.org. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
  3. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Peru languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  4. "Pérez Valderrama, Martha | The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America". ailla.utexas.org. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
  • Adelaar, Willem (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
  • Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: Cholón
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.