Moxos language

Moxo (also known as ''Mojo'', pronounced 'Moho') is any of the Arawakan languages spoken by the Moxo people of the Llanos de Moxos in northeastern Bolivia. 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.

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 () 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 Joaquín
* Pauna languages
**Paunaka
**Paikoneka
*Mojo languages
**Trinitário: spoken in Trinidad
**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:

Magíana 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
* Classification of indigenous languages of the Americas
* Mesoamerican languages
* Language families and languages
* Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
* Indigenous peoples of the Americas
* :Indigenous languages of the Americas (division into geocultural areas)
* Languages of Peru
* List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin

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 corpus
compiled 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