| Cholón | |
| Nativename: | Seeptsá |
| States: | Peru |
| Region: | Huallaga River valley |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Hibito–Cholon ? |
| Iso3: | cht |
| Glotto: | chol1284 |
| Glottorefname: | Cholon |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Speakers: | Only one native speaker (2021) |
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]
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]
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 | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | pronounced as /ɲ/ | pronounced as /ŋ/ | ||
| Plosive | pronounced as /p/ | pronounced as /t/ | pronounced as /k/ | pronounced as /ʔ/ | ||
| Affricate | pronounced as /ts/ | pronounced as /tʃ/ | ||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /ʃ/ | pronounced as /h/ | |||
| Approximant | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /l/ | pronounced as /ʎ, j/ |
The vowels appeared to have been similar to Spanish pronounced as /[a e~ɪ i o~ʊ u]/.
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) |
. Čestmír Loukotka . Classification of South American Indian languages . registration . UCLA Latin American Center . 1968 . Los Angeles.
Languages of the World
. 22nd . Eberhard . David M. . Simons . Gary F. . Fennig . Charles D. . 2019 . Dallas . SIL International.