Abstract
Ayoreo is spoken by about 5,000 people in the Chaco lowlands of southeastern Bolivia and northern Paraguay. Its family, Zamucoan, also comprises †Old Zamuco and Chamacoco (2,000 speakers in northern Paraguay). In the past, Chaco constituted a linguistic area that also included Mataguayan, Guaycuruan, Enlhet-Enenlhet, Lule-Vilela, some Tupi-Guarani languages, and Chiquitano (see Comrie et al. 2010; González 2015; Ciucci 2020). While South American Indigenous languages are mostly agglutinating, Zamucoan languages are fusional. The typical constituent order is S/A-V-O, with the possessed preceded by the possessor and the noun followed by adjectival modifiers. Verbs are tenseless (Bertinetto 2014b) and distinguish between realis and irrealis. Nouns may have prefixes to mark the possessor. Nouns and adjectives have a suffix expressing gender, number, morphosyntactic function, and determinacy (see Bertinetto 2014a; Ciucci 2016). Although Ayoreo is endangered and Ayoreo-Spanish bilingualism is increasing, Ayoreo is still in vigorous use and is transmitted to children. Ayoreo is used in community schools and is recognized as an official language in Bolivia
Journal
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Publication Name
Onomatopoeia in the World’s Languages
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ISBN/ISSN
978-3-11-105155-0
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Issue
10
Pages Count
14
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Publisher
De Gruyter Mouton
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Publisher Location
Berlin, Germany
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EISSN
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DOI
10.1515/9783111053226-090