Charruan languages

Language family of South America

The Charruan languages are a language family once spoken in Uruguay and the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. In 2005, a semi-speaker of the Chaná language, Blas Wilfredo Omar Jaime, was found in Entre Ríos Province, Argentina.^[1]

Internal coherence

Charruan may actually consist of two or three unrelated families according to Nikulin (2019).^[2] Nikulin notes that many of the following languages share very few basic vocabulary items with each other.

1. Chaná as spoken by Blas Wilfredo Omar Jaime
2. Chaná of Larrañaga (1923)^[3]
3. Charrúa of Vilardebó (1842)
4. Güenoa from a short 18th-century catechesis quoted by Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro^[4]

Languages

Four languages are considered to definitively belong to the Charruan language family, basically Chañá (Lanték), Nbeuá, Charrúa and Guenoa.^[5]

• Charruan language family
  • Chaná
    • Chaná language proper
    • "Mbeguá", "Beguá", or "Chaná-Beguá"
    • "Timbúes", "Chaná Timbúes", "Timbó", or "Chaná timbó"
  • Charrúa
  • Güenoa

A number of unattested languages are also presumed to belong to the Charruan family:^[5]

• Bohane – spoken near Maldonado, or Salto, in Uruguay
• Calchine – spoken in Santa Fe Province, Argentina, along the Salado River
• Caracañá – spoken along the Caracañá River, Santa Fe
• Chaná-Mbegua or Begua – spoken on the Paraná River 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 Entre Ríos Province
• 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 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:^[5][6]

Lexical comparison from Nikulin (2019):^[2]

References

1. La Nación, "Investigan los orígenes de una extraña lengua indígena". 2005-07-01.
2. 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.
3. Larrañaga, Dámaso Antonio. 1923. Compendio del idioma de la nación chaná. In Escritos de D. Dámaso A. Larrañaga, tomo III, 163-174. Montevideo: Instituto Histórico y Geográfico del Uruguay, Imprenta Nacional.
4. Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo. 1787. Saggio Pratico delle lingue. (Idea dell'Universo, XXI.) Cesena: Gregorio Biasini all'Insengna di Pallade. 255pp.
5. Loukotka, Čestmír (1968), Classification of South American Indian Languages, Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center
6. 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^{[permanent dead link]}