The Araucanian languages are a small

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 ...

indigenous languages of the Americas The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now e ...

spoken in central

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and neighboring areas of

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 ...

. The living representatives of this family are

Mapudungun Mapuche ( , ; from 'land' and 'people', meaning 'the people of the land') or Mapudungun (from 'land' and 'speak, speech', meaning 'the speech of the land'; also spelled Mapuzugun and Mapudungu) is either a language isolate or member of the s ...

(

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 in Chile and Argentina. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco or Ve ...

(

: huh), spoken respectively by the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

and Huilliche people. These are usually considered divergent dialects of a single

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

Demographics

It is estimated that there are approximately 200,000 Mapudungun 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, 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 A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. ( = extinct) *Mapudungun **Mapudungun, Nuclear ***''

'' ***'' 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