Kawésqar | |
Also Known As: | Alacaluf |
Nativename: | Kawésqar, Qawasqar |
States: | Chile |
Region: | Channel Region, western Patagonia, Wellington Island off south Chilean coast, 49° south, with centre in Puerto Edén. |
Ethnicity: | Alacaluf people (2002 census) |
Speakers: | 10 |
Date: | 2019 |
Familycolor: | American |
Fam1: | Alacalufan |
Iso3: | alc |
Glotto: | qawa1238 |
Glottorefname: | Qawasqar |
Map: | Kawésqar.png |
Map2: | Lang Status 20-CR.svg |
Notice: | IPA |
Kawésqar (Qawasqar), also known as Alacaluf,[1] is a critically endangered Alacalufan language spoken in southern Chile by the Kawésqar people. Originally part of a small family,[2] only the northern language remains. In 2009, only a handful of elderly people spoke the language, most of whom lived on Wellington Island off the southwest coast of Chile.[3]
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
Open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
Plosive | Plain | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
Ejective | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
Tap / flap | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
Trill | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
The alphabet in use has the following letters: a, æ, c, cꞌ, e, f, h, i, j, k, kꞌ, l, m, n, o, p, pꞌ, q, r, rr, s, t, tꞌ, u, w, x. However, differences are reported between dialects, and some sounds are not represented.
Kawésqar has a complex system of grammatical tense, which includes a basic morphological contrast between future, present, immediate past, recent past, distant past, and mythological past events.