Charruan languages

Charruan
Ethnicity:	Charrúa people
Geographic distribution:	Uruguay and Entre Ríos Province, Argentina
Linguistic classification:	Mataco–Guaicuru ? Charruan
Subdivisions:	Balomar Chaná Charrúa Güenoa
Pre-contact distribution of the Charruan languages

The Charruan languages are an extinct group of languages once spoken in Uruguay and the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. Recently (2005) a semi-speaker of Chaná language has appeared^[1]

Four languages are considered to definitively belong to the Charruan language family^[2]:

• Balomar
• Chaná
• Charrúa
• Güenoa

A number of unattested languages are also presumed to belong to the Charruan family^[2]:

• Bohane – spoken near Maldonado, 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
• 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

Vocabulary Comparison

The Charruan languages are poorly attested. However, sufficient vocabulary has been gathered for the languages to be compared^[2]:

English	Charrua	Chaná	Güenoa
eye	i-xou
ear	i-mau
hand	guar	mbó
water	hué
sun		dioi
dog	samayoí		lochan
tree		huok
one	yú	ugil	yut
two	sam	usan
three	detí	detit

Genetic Relations

Morris Swadesh includes Charruan along with Matacoan languages, Guaicuruan, and Mascoian within his Macro-Mapuche stock.

Kaufman (1990) suggests that the Guaicuruan–Matacoan–Charruan–Mascoyan–Lule–Vilela proposal deserves to be explored — a grouping which he calls Macro-Waikurúan.^[3] Kaufman's (1994) Macro-Waikurúan proposal excludes Lule–Vilela.^[4]

References

1. ^ La Nación, "Investigan los orígenes de una extraña lengua indígena" 2005/July/01
2. ^ ^{a b c} Loukotka, Čestmír (1968), Classification of South American Indian Languages, Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center 
3. ^ Kaufman, Terrence (1990), "Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more", in Payne, D.L., Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages, Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 13–67, ISBN 0-292-70414-3 
4. ^ Kaufman, Terrence (1994), "The native languages of South America", in Mosley, C.; Asher, R.E., Atlas of the world's languages, London: Routledge, pp. 46–76