Kunza language

Kunza
Kunza
Atacameño, Ckunsa
Likanantaí, Ckunsa
Native to	Chile, Peru, Bolivia
Region	Atacama Desert
Ethnicity	2,000 Atacama
Extinct	after 1964?
Revival	2020s
Language family	Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kuz
Glottolog	kunz1244
	Possible historic geographical extent of the Kunza language
	Atacameño is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Kunza (Kunza: Likanantaí) is a mostly extinct and revitalizing language isolate spoken in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru by the Atacama people, who have since shifted to Spanish. The last speaker was documented in 1964; however, it has since been learned that the language is still spoken in the desert.^[2]^{[clarification needed]}

Other names and spellings include Cunza, Ckunsa, Likanantaí, Lipe, Ulipe, and Atacameño. The word Ckunsa means 'our' in Kunza.^[3]

From what data is available, it is believed that it was a polysynthetic language. However, there is not sufficient information to determine which languages it was related to, if any. Thus, it is conventionally classified as a language isolate.

History

The language was spoken in northern Chile, specifically in the Chilean villages of Peine, Socaire (near the Salar de Atacama), and Caspana, and in southern Peru.

The last Kunza speaker was found in 1949, although there are reports of some having been found in 1953 according to anthropologists.^[4] Loukotka (1968) reports a few speakers in Bolivia and in the village of Peine in Chile.^[1] There are 2,000 Atacameños as of 2004.^[5]

A revitalization effort was initiated in the 21st century.^[6]

Classification

Kaufman (1990) found a proposed connection between Kunza and the likewise unclassified Kapixaná to be plausible;^[7] however, the language was more fully described in 2004, and the general consensus among linguists was that both languages are isolates.^[8]

Unattested varieties listed by Loukotka (1968):^[1]

Atacameño of Bolivia – spoken in a small village on the frontier of Potosí Department, Bolivia, and Antofagasta Province of Chile
Lipe (Olipe) – extinct language once spoken south of the Salar de Uyuni, Potosí Department, Bolivia

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Mochika, Kandoshi, Jaqi, Kechua, Mapudungun, and Uru-Chipaya language families due to contact.^[9]

Phonology

Consonants

The vocabulary of Kunza is well-documented, but the phonetic realizations of lexical transcriptions are not so certain due to the widely differing systems of transcription that were used. Because of this, the accepted phonologic system for Kunza is tentative, and potentially even speculation. Even so, it is well known that the stops and affricates were distinguished between plain and glottalized (the latter being represented by a doubled consonant in some transcriptions, even in initial position).

Consonants^[5]
		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
		Bilabial	plain	sibilant	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡s	t͡ʃ	k	q	ʔ
Stop/ Affricate	ejective	pʼ	tʼ		t͡ʃʼ	(kʼ)	(qʼ)
Fricative	voiceless		ɬ	s		x	χ	h
Fricative	voiced	β				ɣ
Approximant		(w)	l		j
Trill			r

/w/ is only present in loanwords. /kʼ/ and /qʼ/ are not directly attested, but are presumed to have been present based on data collected in 1981. Velar and uvular sounds are not consistently distinguished in the data.

Vowels

The use of doubled vowels in transcriptions suggest the existence of a contrast of length. Very few words begin with a vowel, almost all of them being non-lexical grammatical words. The only vowels possible in initial position are /a i/.

Vowels^[5]
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː	(ə)	o oː
Open		a aː

Grammar

Pronouns

According to the work of Vaïsse, Peyró, Schuhmacher and Adelaar, the following schema can be proposed:

Personal pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st person	aqʼ	kun
2nd person	čʼem	čim
3rd person	a, i	ikot

Note that ikot corresponds to the relative i with the plural marker -kot. The forms with the added absolutive case suffix would be: aqʼa, kuna, čʼema, čime, ia, ikota.

Possessive pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st person	aqʼsa	kunsa
2nd person	čʼemsa	čimsa
3rd person	isa	ikotsa

Note that the possessive marker is the suffix -sa, which is added directly to the roots of the personal pronouns.

San Román proposed a different way of marking possession, by means of prefixes added to the possessed object. The phonetic realizations are only hypothetical:

	Singular	Plural
1st person	qʼ	kun
2nd person	sʼ	čim
3rd person	ai	qʼ

According to this system, the possessive is marked in a way demonstrated in the following table, using the words tikʼan (father) and lokma (dog) as examples. Note that the final suffix -ia is a copula.

		Singular	Plural
1st person	tikʼan	(aqʼsa) qʼ tik'ania	(kunsa) kun tikʼania
1st person	lokma	(aqʼsa) qʼ lokmaia	(kunsa) kun lokmaia
2nd person	tikʼan	(čʼemsa) sʼ tikʼania	(čimsa) čim tikʼania
2nd person	lokma	(čimsa) sʼ lokmaia	(čimsa) čim lokmaia
3rd person	tikʼan	(isa) ai tikʼania	(ikotsa) qʼ tikʼania
3rd person	lokma	(ikotsa) ai lokmaia	(ikotsa) qʼ tikʼania

San Román also proposed a system of conjugation that is exemplified with the verb yokontur (to speak) in the following table:

	Singular	Plural
1st person	(aqʼa) qʼ yokona	(kuna) kun yokona
2nd person	(čʼema) se yokona	(čime) čim yokona
3rd person	(ia) yokona	(ikota) etʼ yokona

Sample text

In 1867, Johann Jakob von Tschudi collected two versions of the prayer Our Father in Kunza.

Version 1
tican cunsa hirico is astansi i cotas cielos.
santi hijia chea vaclo.
cum cachia chema reino lepalo.
as voluntas acquis en la oiri penii cachi li cielo.
hi tancta cumsa he capin vasina canalo aun capin.
i cum perdonácalo cun manuya acquis pen cuna perdonama cun deudorctpas.
i cum deja chacalo cum colac cutia y tentacioniyas.
hichucul cumas librácolo hiri malipanta.
i kis yaclo.

Version 2
Tican tansi cielo stansi santificado chema izcu charcer
chema halu acs koytans levaldise. Señor voluntad tansiacs
koytansi cielo sacuma ctanta acsa viñayapun acsancalo
anjapin acperdona acs deuma chancosinys acperdona acsec-
tunas andejachaculo colcoma en tentación aca librame Señor
hualchas unic. Amen.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Wilbert, Johannes (ed.). Classification of South American Indian Languages (PDF) (4th ed.). Latin American Center, UCLA. p. 239. ISBN 9780879031077.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Bartlett, John (October 17, 2024). "In Chile a language on the verge of extinction, stirs into life". NPR.
^ Vaïsse, Emilio F (1896). Glosario de la Lengua Atacameña (PDF). Santiago: Imprenta Cervantes.
^ Miyaoka, Osahito; Sakiyama, Osamu; Krauss, Michael E., eds. (2007). The vanishing languages of the Pacific rim. Oxford linguistics. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 196–197. ISBN 978-0-19-926662-3. OCLC 71004259.
^ ^a ^b ^c Adelaar, Willem; Muysken, Pieter (2004). The Languages of the Andes. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 380.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
^ Bartlett, John; Dixon, Greg (2024-05-17). "Saving a Language in Chile". State of the World. NPR. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
^ Kaufman, Terrence (1990). "Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more". In Payne, Doris L. (ed.). Amazonian linguistics: studies in lowland South American languages. Texas linguistics series (1st ed.). Austin, Tex: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-72364-1.
^ Campbell, Lyle (2024). The indigenous languages of the Americas: history and classification. Oxford scholarship online. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-767349-2.
^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.

External links

Kunza Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
Spanish-Kunza dictionary online
Bibliography about Kunza
Alain Fabre, 2005, Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: KUNZA[1]
Kunza (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)

[:1-1] Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Wilbert, Johannes (ed.). Classification of South American Indian Languages (PDF) (4th ed.). Latin American Center, UCLA. p. 239. ISBN 9780879031077.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

[2] Bartlett, John (October 17, 2024). "In Chile a language on the verge of extinction, stirs into life". NPR.

[3] Vaïsse, Emilio F (1896). Glosario de la Lengua Atacameña (PDF). Santiago: Imprenta Cervantes.

[4] Miyaoka, Osahito; Sakiyama, Osamu; Krauss, Michael E., eds. (2007). The vanishing languages of the Pacific rim. Oxford linguistics. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 196–197. ISBN 978-0-19-926662-3. OCLC 71004259.

[:0-5] Adelaar, Willem; Muysken, Pieter (2004). The Languages of the Andes. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 380.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

[6] Bartlett, John; Dixon, Greg (2024-05-17). "Saving a Language in Chile". State of the World. NPR. Retrieved 2024-05-18.

[7] Kaufman, Terrence (1990). "Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more". In Payne, Doris L. (ed.). Amazonian linguistics: studies in lowland South American languages. Texas linguistics series (1st ed.). Austin, Tex: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-72364-1.

[8] Campbell, Lyle (2024). The indigenous languages of the Americas: history and classification. Oxford scholarship online. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-767349-2.

[Jolkesky-2016-9] Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.

[2]