Moxo (also known as ''Mojo'', pronounced 'Moho') is any of the
Arawakan languages
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient Indigenous peoples in South America. Branc ...
spoken by the
Moxo people Moxo may refer to:
* Moxo people, an ethnic group of Bolivia
* Moxo languages, the languages spoken by them
* Francesc de Moxó (1879–1920), Spanish politician and sports leader
* Manuel Córdova-Rios (''Ino Moxo''), a ''vegetalista'' (herbalist) ...
of the
Llanos de Moxos in northeastern
Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
. The two extant languages of the Moxo people, ''Trinitario'' and ''Ignaciano'', are as distinct from one another as they are from neighboring Arawakan languages. The extinct ''Magiana'' was also distinct.
Moxo languages have an
active–stative syntax. It is one of the National Languages of
Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
.
Sociolinguistic background
The languages belong to a group of tribes that originally ranged through the upper
Mamoré, extending east and west from the Guapure (
Itenes) to the
Beni, and are now centered in the
Province of Moxos, Department of
Beni, Bolivia. They form part of the
Mamoré-Guaporé linguistic area.
Moxo was also the primary
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
() used in the
Jesuit Missions of Moxos.
Ignaciano is used in town meetings unless outsiders are present, and it is a required subject in the lower school grades, one session per week. Perhaps half of the children learn Ignaciano. By the 1980s there were fewer than 100 monolinguals, all older than 30.
Classification
The Moxo languages are most closely related to Bauré, Pauna, and Paikoneka. Together, they form the ''Mamoré-Guaporé'' languages (named after the
Mamoré River and
Guaporé River). Classification by Jolkesky (2016):
*
Mamoré-
Guaporé languages
**
Bauré
***Bauré
***Carmelito
***Joaquiniano
***Muxojeóne
**Moxeno
***Ignaciano
***Trinitário
***Loretano
***Javierano
**Paikoneka
***Paikoneka
**
Paunaka
***Paunaka
Classification by Danielsen (2011) and Danielsen & Terhart (2014: 226):
*
Baure languages
**Bauré
**Carmelito
**Joaquiniano: spoken in
San JoaquÃn
*
Pauna languages
**Paunaka
**Paikoneka
*Mojo languages
**Trinitário: spoken in
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...
**Ignaciano: spoken in
San Ignacio
**Loretano: spoken in
Loreto
**Javierano: spoken in
San Javier
**Muchojeone
Phonology
Consonants
* /h/ can be voiced as
�between vowels.
* /w/ can be heard as
�before a front vowel, and as
�when preceding /j/.
Vowels
* /e/ can also have an allophone of
�
Word lists
The following is a wordlist containing sample words from English to Moxos:
MagÃana word list from the late 1700s published in Palau and Saiz (1989):
[Palau, Mercedes and Blanca Saiz. 1989. ''Moxos: Descripciones exactas e historia fiel de los indios, animales y plantas de la provincia de Moxos en el virreinato del Perú por Lázaro de Ribera, 1786-1794''. Madrid: El Viso.]
:
See also
*
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 ...
*
Classification of indigenous languages of the Americas
*
Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican languages are the languages Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The ar ...
*
Language families and languages
*
Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
Historically, classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas is based upon cultural regions, geography, and linguistics. Anthropologists have named various cultural regions, with fluid boundaries, that are generally agreed upon with so ...
*
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of ...
*
:Indigenous languages of the Americas (division into geocultural areas)
*
Languages of Peru
Peru has many languages in use, with its official languages being Spanish language, Spanish, Quechuan languages, Quechua and Aymara language, Aymara. Spanish has been in the country since it began being taught in the time of José Pardo y Barre ...
*
List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
This is a list of Spanish language, Spanish words that come from indigenous languages of the Americas. It is further divided into words that come from Arawakan languages, Arawakan, Aymara language, Aymara, Carib languages, Carib, Mayan languages, ...
Further reading
*Carvalho, Fernando O. de; Françoise Rose
Comparative reconstruction of Proto-Mojeño and the phonological diversification of Mojeño dialects ''LIAMES'', Campinas, v. 18, n. 1, p. 3–44, Jan./Jun. 2018.
*Key, Mary Ritchie. 2015
Ignaciano dictionary In: Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) ''The
Intercontinental Dictionary Series''. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
*Gill, Ruth, and Wayne Gill. 2015
Trinitario dictionary In: Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) ''The
Intercontinental Dictionary Series''. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
References
External links
Ignaciano(
Intercontinental Dictionary Series)
Trinitario(
Intercontinental Dictionary Series)
Mojeño Trinitario DoReCo corpuscompiled by Françoise Rose. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and - for some texts - time-aligned morphological annotations.
{{Jesuit Missions of Moxos
Arawakan languages
Languages of Bolivia
*
Jesuit Missions of Moxos