Chipaya language

Chipaya
Chipaya
Chipay taqu
Native to	Bolivia
Region	Oruro Department
Native speakers	1,800 (2012)
Language family	Uru–Chipaya Chipaya;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cap
Glottolog	chip1262
ELP	Chipaya
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Chipaya^[3] (Chipaya: Chipay taqu) is an Indigenous South American language of the Uru–Chipaya language family, spoken by 1,800 of the Chipaya people.

Classification

Chipaya is related to the Uru (Uchumataqu) and Uru of Chʼimu languages, both of which are now extinct,^[4] in a language family termed Uru–Chipaya. Even though Uru and Chipaya are closely related, they are "probably" not mutually intellligible.^[5]

Status

Ethnologue lists the language vitality as "vigorous," with 1,800 speakers out of an ethnic population of around 2,100, although younger generations speak it progressively less.^[1]

History

Documentation

Max Uhle visited the Uru-Chipaya language area in 1894 and collected data on both Uru and Chipaya. Alfred Métraux and Arthur Posnansky also documented both languages. Ronald Olson further documented Chipaya, particularly extensively with respect to lexical material. Liliane Porterie Gutiérrez conducted "substantial" research on Chipaya during the 1980s, though her death prevented the publication of many of her materials. Beginning in 2001, Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino began a new documentation project on the language.^[5]

Geographical distribution

The Chipaya 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 Chipay taqu or Puquina or Uchun Maa Taqu ("our mother language"), but is not the same as, nor in fact even related to, the extinct Puquina language.^[6]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar		Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar		Uvular
		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar		Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	plain	labialized	plain	labialized
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/			ň /ɲ/	ŋ /ŋ/
Plosive	plain	p /p/	t /t/				k /k/	kʷ /kʷ/	q /q/	qʷ /qʷ/
	aspirated	ph /pʰ/	th /tʰ/				kh /kʰ/		qh /qʰ/
	ejective	p' /pʼ/	t' /tʼ/				k' /kʼ/		q' /qʼ/
Affricate	plain		¢ /ts/		ĉ /tʂ/	č /tʃ/
	aspirated		¢h /tsʰ/		ĉh /tʂʰ/	čh /tʃʰ/
	ejective		¢' /tsʼ/		ĉ' /tʂʼ/	č' /tʃʼ/
Fricative			z /s̪/	s /s/	ŝ /ʂ/		h /x/	hʷ /xʷ/	x /χ/	xʷ /χʷ/
Rhotic			r /r/
Lateral			l /l/			ll /ʎ/	lj /ʟ/
Approximant						y /j/		w /w/

Consonant clusters

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

Possible syllable onsets are:

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

Possible syllable codas are:

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

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i /i/		u /u/
Mid	e /e/		o /o/
Low		a /a/

Each vowel can be short, e.g., a [a], or long, e.g., a• [aː].^[7]

Grammar

Chipaya is an agglutinative language, though it has features uncommon to most agglutinative languages, according to preliminary research by the organization DOBES.^[8]

References

1 2 Chipaya at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
↑ Clark, Patricia Roberts (21 October 2009). Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms, Cross-Referenced. McFarland. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-7864-5169-2.
↑ Also Achipaye.^[2]
↑ Crevels, Mily (2012-01-13), Campbell, Lyle; Grondona, Verónica (eds.), "Language endangerment in South America: The clock is ticking", The Indigenous Languages of South America, DE GRUYTER, pp. 167–234, doi:10.1515/9783110258035.167, ISBN 978-3-11-025513-3, retrieved 2026-05-17{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
1 2 Adelaar, Willem F. H.; Muysken, Pieter (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
↑ Urban, Matthias, ed. (2024). The Oxford guide to the languages of the central Andes. Oxford guides to the world's languages. Oxford, United Kingdom New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-884992-6.
↑ Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo (2006). El Chipaya o Lengua de los Hombres del Agua. Lima: Fondo Editorial, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
↑ "Uru-ChipayaUru-Chipaya". DOBES. Retrieved 2026-05-17.

External links

[e25-1] 1 2 Chipaya at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[clark-2] Clark, Patricia Roberts (21 October 2009). Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms, Cross-Referenced. McFarland. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-7864-5169-2.

[3] Also Achipaye.^[2]

[4] Crevels, Mily (2012-01-13), Campbell, Lyle; Grondona, Verónica (eds.), "Language endangerment in South America: The clock is ticking", The Indigenous Languages of South America, DE GRUYTER, pp. 167–234, doi:10.1515/9783110258035.167, ISBN 978-3-11-025513-3, retrieved 2026-05-17{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)

[:0-5] 1 2 Adelaar, Willem F. H.; Muysken, Pieter (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.

[6] Urban, Matthias, ed. (2024). The Oxford guide to the languages of the central Andes. Oxford guides to the world's languages. Oxford, United Kingdom New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-884992-6.

[7] Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo (2006). El Chipaya o Lengua de los Hombres del Agua. Lima: Fondo Editorial, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

[8] "Uru-ChipayaUru-Chipaya". DOBES. Retrieved 2026-05-17.

[3]

Chipaya
Chipay taqu
Native to	Bolivia
Region	Oruro Department
Native speakers	1,800 (2012)^[1]
Language family	Uru–Chipaya Chipaya
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`cap`
Glottolog	`chip1262`
ELP	Chipaya
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.