The Araucanian languages are a small

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...

indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...

spoken in central

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and neighboring areas of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. The living representatives of this family are Mapudungun (

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...

: arn) and

Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north hal ...

(

: huh), spoken respectively by the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

and

Huilliche people The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north hal ...

. These are sometimes considered divergent dialects of a single language isolate.

Demographics

It is estimated that there are approximately 200,000 Mapudungu speakers in Chile and 40,000 speakers in Argentina. Huilliche is the native language of a few thousand Chileans.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Kunza, Mochika, Uru-Chipaya,

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Great ...

, Pano, Cholon-Hibito, and Kechua language families due to contact.

Internal classification

Mason (1950)

Internal classification of Araucanian languages by Mason (1950): ;Araucanian *North **Picunche **

** Pewenche ***Rankel(che) **Moluche *South **Wiliche (

) ***Wiliche ****Serrano ****Pichi-Wiliche ***Manzanero **Veliche (Chilote) **Chikiyami (Cuncho) **Leuvuche *East **Taluhet (Taluche) **Divihet (Diviche)

Jolkesky (2016)

Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery. 2016.
Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas
'. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Brasília. († = extinct) ;Mapudungun *Mapudungun, Nuclear **'' Mapudungun'' **'' Pewenche'' **'' Rankelche'' *Mapudungun, Southern: '' Williche'' *Mapudungun, Northern **'' Pikunche'' † **'' Chango'' †

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Mapuche (Araucanian) language varieties.

References

External links

Ethnologue, Languages of the World: Araucanian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Araucanian Languages Mapuche language Language families