The Charruan languages are a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

once spoken in

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

and the

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

province of Entre Ríos. In 2005, a

semi-speaker Within the linguistic study of endangered languages, sociolinguists distinguish between different speaker types based on the type of competence they have acquired of the endangered language. Often when a community is gradually shifting away from a ...

of the Chaná language, Blas Wilfredo Omar Jaime, was found in

Entre Ríos Province Entre Ríos (, "Between Rivers") is a Center Region, Argentina, central provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia, Argentina, Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires Province, Buenos Aires (so ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Internal coherence

Charruan may actually consist of two or three unrelated families according to Nikulin (2019).Nikulin, Andrey V. 2019.
The classification of the languages of the South American Lowlands: State-of-the-art and challenges / Классификация языков востока Южной Америки
'. Illič-Svityč (Nostratic) Seminar / Ностратический семинар, Higher School of Economics, October 17, 2019. Nikulin notes that many of the following languages share very few basic vocabulary items with each other. # Chaná as spoken by Blas Wilfredo Omar Jaime # Chaná of Larrañaga (1923) #

Charrúa The Charrúa are an Indigenous people or Indigenous Nation of the Southern Cone in present-day Uruguay and the adjacent areas in Argentina ( Entre Ríos) and Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul). They were a semi-nomadic people who sustained themselves ...

of Vilardebó (1842) # Güenoa from a short 18th-century

catechesis Catechesis (; from Greek: , "instruction by word of mouth", generally "instruction") is basic Christian religious education of children and adults, often from a catechism book. It started as education of converts to Christianity, but as the ...

quoted by Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro

Languages

Four languages are considered to definitively belong to the Charruan language family, basically Chañá (Lanték), Nbeuá, Charrúa and Guenoa. Nbeuá is thought to be a dialect of Chaná. A fourth language, Balomar, is claimed to exist by Loukotka (1968), but there is no data on it. * Charruan languages ** Chaná () *** Chaná proper *** "Mbeguá", "Beguá", or "Chaná-Beguá" *** "Timbúes", "Chaná Timbúes", "Timbó", or "Chaná timbó" **

** Güenoa (Minuan) ** '' Balomar'' (unattested) A number of unattested languages are also presumed to belong to the Charruan family: * Bohane – spoken near Maldonado, or Salto, in

*Calchine – spoken in

Santa Fe Province The Invincible Province of Santa Fe (, , lit. "Holy Faith") is a Provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco Province, Chaco (divided by the 2 ...

, Argentina, along the Salado River *Caracañá – spoken along the Caracañá River, Santa Fe *Chaná-Mbegua or Begua – spoken on the

Paraná River The Paraná River ( ; ; ) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some ."Parana River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. ...

between Crespo and Victoria *Colastiné – spoken in Santa Fe Province near Colastiné *Corondá – spoken in Coronda, Santa Fe Province *Guaiquiaré – spoken in Entre Ríos on the Arroyo Guaiquiraré *Mocoreta or Macurendá or Mocolete – spoken along the Mocoretá River in

*Pairindi – spoken in Entre Ríos from Corrientes to the Feliciano River *Timbu – spoken in Gaboto, Santa Fe Province * Yaro – spoken in Uruguay between the Río Negro and the San Salvador River

Genetic relations

Jorge Suárez includes Charruan with Guaicuruan in a hypothetical ''Waikuru-Charrúa'' stock.

Morris Swadesh Morris Swadesh ( ; January 22, 1909 – July 20, 1967) was an American linguist who specialized in comparative and historical linguistics, and developed his mature career at UNAM in Mexico. Swadesh was born in Massachusetts to Bessarabian Jewi ...

includes Charruan along with Guaicuruan, Matacoan, and Mascoyan within his ''Macro-Mapuche'' stock. Both proposals appear to be obsolete.

Vocabulary comparison

The Charruan languages are poorly attested. However, sufficient vocabulary has been gathered for the languages to be compared:This comparison table is a revision by Br. José Damián Torko Gómez, based on the J.C. Sábat Pébet and J.J. Figueira compilation of all terms known of the "Uruguayan" aboriginal languages. Source: https://www.estudioshistoricos-en.edu.uy/assets/080-boletín-histórico-nº-120---123---año-1969.pdf : Lexical comparison from Nikulin (2019): :

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charruan Languages Language families Languages of Argentina Languages of Uruguay Indigenous languages of the South American Cone Extinct languages of South America Mataco–Guaicuru languages Chaco linguistic area