Annotated Swadesh wordlists for the Mataguayan family.

Languages included: Lower Bermejeño Wichí [mat-wlb]; Rivadavia Wichí [mat-wri]; Vejoz Wichí [mat-vej]; ʼWeenhayek [mat-wnh]; Iyojwaʼajaʼ [mat-ijw]; Manjui [mat-mnj]; Iyoʼawujwaʼ [mat-iyu]; Shichaam Lhavos Nivaĉle [mat-nis]; Chishamnee Lhavos Nivaĉle [mat-nic]; Maká [mat-mak].

DATA SOURCES

I. Wichí

Lower Bermejeño dialect

Nercesian 2014 = Nercesian, Verónica. Wichi lhomtes. Estudio de la gramática y la interacción fonología-morfología-sintaxis-semántica. München: LINCOM Studies in Native American Linguistics. // A grammar of Lower Bermejeño Wichí.

Braunstein 2009 = Braunstein, José Alberto. Contribución para el Intercontinental Dictionary Series Worldlist [sic] editado por Mary Ritchie Key (Universidad de California en Irvine). In: José Braunstein & Cristina Messineo (eds.), Hacia una nueva carta étnica del Gran Chaco VIII: 3–90. Las Lomitas: Centro del Hombre Antiguo Chaqueño (Chaco). Available online at <http://pueblosoriginarios.com/lenguas/wichi.php>. // A wordlist of Lower Bermejeño Wichí as spoken in J.G. Bazán.

WSLh = Nercesian, Verónica (coord.). Wichi–siwele lhayhilh / Diccionario wichí–castellano. Buenos Aires: INILSyT, Universidad Nacional de Formosa & IFLH, Universidad de Buenos Aires & DILA, CAICyT-CONICET. Available online at <https://diccionariowichi.com.ar>. // An online vocabulary of Wichí.

Rivadavia dialect

Terraza 2009 = Terraza, Jimena. 2009. Grammaire du wichi : phonologie et morphosyntaxe. Montréal: Université du Québec à Montréal dissertation. // A grammar of Lower Bermejeño Wichí as spoken in Rivadavia.

Vejoz dialect

Gutiérrez & Osornio 2015 = Gutiérrez, Marcos; Osornio, María Elina López. Diccionario Wichi. Buenos Aires: Editorial Dunken. // A dictionary of Vejoz Wichí as spoken in Misión Chaqueña. The dialectal differences are sometimes indicated.

Lunt 2016 = Lunt, Robert. Un diccionario de la lengua wichí. Buenos Aires: Sociedad Bíblica Argentina. // A pan-dialectal dictionary of Wichí with information on Vejoz as spoken in Misión Chaqueña and Güisnay.

Viñas Urquiza 1974 = Viñas Urquiza, María Teresa. Lengua mataca. Tomo 2. (Archivo de lenguas precolombinas, 2.) Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos. // A vocabulary of Vejoz Wichí as spoken in Embarcación.

Güisnay dialect

Avram 2008 = Avram, Megan Leigh Zdrojkowski. A phonological description of Wichí: the dialect of Misión La Paz, Salta, Argentina. MA thesis. Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University. // A phonological description of Güisnay Wichí as spoken in Misión La Paz. No texts or glossaries are included.

Censabella 2009 = Censabella, Marisa. Sistema fonológico y sincronía dinámica de seis variedades orientales del continuum wichí. In: Ana Fernández Garay & Marisa Censabella (eds.), Estudios fonológicos de continua dialectales: mapuche y wichí: 111–44. Santa Rosa: Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de La Pampa. // A comparison of six Wichí subdialects, including the Güisnay variety as spoken in Misión El Carmen. Narrow phonetic transcriptions are provided, but the overall amount of data is quite limited.

Lunt 2016 = Lunt, Robert. Un diccionario de la lengua wichí. Buenos Aires: Sociedad Bíblica Argentina. // A pan-dialectal dictionary of Wichí with information on Vejoz as spoken in Misión Chaqueña and Güisnay.

Spinelli 2007 = Spinelli, Silvia A. 2007. El sistema fonológico de la lengua wichí: Misión Santa María. In: Ana Valentina Fernández Garay & Marisa Malvestitti (eds.), Estudios lingüísticos y sociolingüísticos de lenguas indígenas sudamericana:, 159–73. Santa Rosa: Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de La Pampa. // A brief phonological description of Güisnay Wichí as spoken in Misión Santa María. Narrow phonetic transcriptions are provided, but the overall amount of data is quite limited.

ʼWeenhayek dialect

Claesson 2016a = Claesson, Kenneth. Notas sobre el vocabulario 'weenhayek. Available online at <http://noctenes.org/onewebmedia/Vocabulario%20'weenhayek%2C%20publ.pdf>. // A dictionary of ʼWeenhayek. Contains grammatical information as well as some examples.

Claesson 2016b = Claesson, Kenneth. Estudios de la gramática del idioma 'weenhayek. Available online at <http://noctenes.org/onewebmedia/Estudios%20del%20nocten.pdf>. // A grammatical sketch of ʼWeenhayek as spoken in Villa Montes.

II. Chorote

Iyojwaʼajaʼ dialect

Drayson 2009 = Drayson, Nicolás. ’Niwak samtis. Diccionario iyojwa’ja ’lij–kilay ’lij (chorote–castellano). In: José Braunstein & Cristina Messineo (eds.), Hacia una nueva carta étnica del Gran Chaco VIII: 91–174. Las Lomitas: Centro del Hombre Antiguo Chaqueño (Chaco). Available online at <http://pueblosoriginarios.com/lenguas/chorote.php>. // A wordlist of Iyoʼajwaʼajaʼ, written entirely using the practical orthography, which fails to represent some phonological contrasts.

Carol 2010 = Carol, Javier. Causación en chorote (mataguayo). AMERINDIA 33/34: 73–108. // A description of the morphosyntax of causatives in Iyojwaʼajaʼ.

Carol 2014 = Carol, Javier. Esbozo fonológico del chorote (mataguayo). LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 14(1): 73–103. // A phonological description of Iyojwaʼajaʼ.

Manjui dialect

Carol 2018 = Carol, Javier. Inamtes jleeizi’ inkijwas ji’lij–kiláyi ji’lij. Diccionario bilingüe manjui–castellano. Asunción: Paraguái Ñe’ẽnguéra Sãmbyhyha PÑS–Secretaría de Políticas Lingüísticas SPL. Available online at <https://spl.gov.py/diccionario-manjui/>. // A dictionary of Manjui. Contains grammatical and cultural information as well as some examples.

Gerzenstein 1983 = Gerzenstein, Ana. Lengua chorote. Variedad 2. (Archivo de lenguas precolombinas, 4.) Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Instituto de Lingüística. // A grammatical description of Iyoʼawujwaʼ (called V2A in the cited work), with some notes on the differences between Iyoʼawujwaʼ and Manjui (V2P in the cited work).

Hunt 1977–1994 = Hunt, Gordon. Manjui dictionary. A lexicon of the Manjui language. Part 1 – Manjui to English. Part 2 – English to Manjui. Santa Rosa, manuscript:

Iyoʼawujwaʼ dialect

Gerzenstein 1983 = Gerzenstein, Ana. Lengua chorote. Variedad 2. (Archivo de lenguas precolombinas, 4.) Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Instituto de Lingüística. // A grammatical description of Iyoʼawujwaʼ (called V2A in the cited work), with some notes on the differences between Iyoʼawujwaʼ and Manjui (V2P in the cited work).

III. Nivaĉle

Shichaam Lhavos dialect

Fabre 2014 = Fabre, Alain. 2014. Estudio gramatical de la lengua nivacle. Kangasala, manuscript. // A grammatical description of Nivaĉle, with many examples drawn from the Nivaĉle version of the New Testament.

Seelwische 2016 = Seelwische, José. Nuevo diccionario nivaĉle–castellano. Tercera edición mejorada. (Biblioteca Paraguaya de Antropología, 94.) Asunción: CEADUC–Centro de Estudios Antropológicos de la Universidad Católica ”Nuestra Señora de la Asunción”. // A dictionary of Nivaĉle, which contains a significant number of entries but few comments on their semantics.

Chishamnee Lhavos dialect

Campbell et al. 2020 = Campbell, Lyle, Luis Díaz & Fernando Ángel. 2020. Nivaclé grammar. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press. // A grammatical description of Nivaĉle, based on the Chishamnee Lhavos dialect.

IV. Maká

Gerzenstein 1999 = Gerzenstein, Ana. Diccionario etnolingüístico maká-español. Indice español-maká. (Archivo de lenguas indoamericanas.) Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Instituto de Lingüística. // A dictionary of Maká. Contains grammatical and cultural information as well as some examples.

MNT = Wycliffe Bible Translatorsʼ version of the New Testament in Maká (2013). Available online at <https://www.bible.com/bible/1108/MAT.1.MCA>. // Wycliffe Bible Translatorsʼ version of the New Testament in Maká.

Braunstein 1987 = Braunstein, José Alberto. El problema de la significación de la cultura material de los indios Maka. Ph.D. dissertation. Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires.

NOTES

I. Wichí

1. General.

Wichí is a dialect continuum spoken by a people known as Wichí in Argentina and as ’Weenhayek in Bolivia. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo (2004–5) reports 40 036 ethnic Wichí in the Argentinean territory, including 36 149 individuals in the provinces of Chaco, Formosa, and Salta. The Bolivian 2012 census (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2015) reports that 4 551 individuals aged 4 or more learnt ’Weenhayek as their first language, and that 3 482 individuals aged 6 or more use it as their main language in daily life. In earlier literature, the language and the people are sometimes called Mataco, an ethnonym now considered pejorative.

From a linguistic point of view, Wichí can be subdivided into at least four dialectal zones:

1. Southeastern Wichí (including subdialects such as Lower Bermejeño Wichí and Rivadavia Wichí) is spoken in the Argentinean provinces of Salta, Formosa, and Chaco along the Bermejo River as well as between the Bermejo and Pilcomayo Rivers;
2. Vejoz is spoken in the Argentinean province of Salta along the Bermejo River;
3. Güisnay (= Lower Pilcomayeño) is a poorly described dialect (or perhaps a dialect cluster) spoken along the Pilcomayo River and around the city of Tartagal in the Argentinean provinces of Salta and Formosa;
4. ’Weenhayek, also called Noctén or Noctenes in earlier literature, is the variety spoken in Bolivia along the Pilcomayo River, between the city of Villamontes and the Argentinean border.

Southeastern Wichí is represented by two subdialects in GLD, and Vejoz and ʼWeenhayek are represented by one wordlist each. One wordlist, with a significant amount of gaps, is given for Güisnay; it is possible that Güisnay includes multiple subdialects, but our sources are quite limited, making it impossible to compile separate wordlists for each Güisnay-speaking community. Our sources on Lower Bermejeño and ʼWeenhayek are more detailed than those on Vejoz, Rivadavia Wichí, or Güisnay.

2. Transliteration.

Southeastern Wichí

The UTS transcription for Southeastern Wich́í corresponds to the practical orthography in the following way.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	pʼ
pʰ	ph
t	t
tʼ	tʼ
tʰ	th
k, q	k
qʼ	kʼ
qʰ	kh
kʷ	kw
č	ch
čʼ	chʼ
čʰ	chh, chʼʼ
c	ts
cʼ	tsʼ
cʰ	tsh
ʔ	ʼ
fʷ	fw
s	s
š	sh
x, χ	j
ɬ	lh
h	h
m	m
ʔm	mʼ
m̥	mh
n	n
ʔn	nʼ
n̥	nh
ɲ̥	ñh
l	l
ʔl	lʼ
w	w
ʔw	wʼ
ʍ	wh
y	y
ʔy	yʼ
ç	yh
a	a
e	e
i	i
o	o
u	u

Notes: in UTS, the distinction between k and q (positional allophones of /q/) and x and χ (positional allophones of /χ/ is made. Allophonic vowel nasalization is not indicated. In [Braunstein 2009], glottalized sonorants are not always represented as such, and the transcription of some segments differs (h for /χ/, hʷ for /fʷ/ and /ʍ/, word-initial [ʔ] is left untranscribed).

The dialectal forms from the variety spoken in Rivadavia are cited without the respective orthographic representations. In [Terraza 2009], all forms are given in an IPA-like transcription (except that the palatal approximant is represented as y). These transcriptions are kept here as is, with some cosmetic adjustements in order to follow the UTS principles.

Vejoz Wichí

The UTS transcription for Vejoz Wich́í corresponds to the practical orthography in the following way.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	pʼ
pʰ	ph
t	t
tʼ	tʼ
tʰ	th
k	k
kʼ	kʼ
kʰ	kh
kʷ	kw
č	ch
čʼ	chʼ
čʰ	chh, chʼʼ
c	ts
cʼ	tsʼ
cʰ	tsh
ʔ	ʼ
hʷ	fw
s	s
h	j
ɬ	lh
h	h
m	m
ʔm	mʼ
m̥	mh
n	n
ʔn	nʼ
n̥	nh
ɲ̥	yh
l	l
ʔl	lʼ
w	w
ʔw	wʼ
y	y
ʔy	yʼ
a	a
ɑ	ä
e	e
i	i
o	o
u	u

Notes: The transcription here follows the normalization in [Viñas Urquiza 1974], and the orthographic representations follow [Gutiérrez & Osornio 2015] and [Lunt 2016].

Güisnay Wichí

The Güisnay Wichí forms are mostly taken from sources that provide relatively narrow phonetic transcriptions. These are reproduced here as is, without an attempt at normalization.

ʼWeenhayek

The UTS transcription for ʼWeenhayek corresponds to the orthography in the following way.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	pʼ
pʰ	ph
t	t
tʼ	tʼ
tʰ	th
k	k
kʼ	kʼ
kʰ	kh
kʷ	kw
kʸ	ky
kʸʰ	kyh
q	q
qʼ	qʼ
qʰ	qh
ʔ	ʼ
c	ts
cʼ	tsʼ
cʰ	tsh
s	s
x	j
xʷ	jw
h	h
l	l
lʔ	lʼ
ʔl	ʼl
ɬ	lh
m	m
mʔ	mʼ
ʔm	ʼm
m̥	mh
n	n
ʔn	ʼn
nʔ	nʼ
n̥	nh
w	w
ʔw	ʼw
ʍ	wh
y	y
yʔ	yʼ
ʔy	ʼy
ç	yh
a	a
aː	aa
e	e
eː	ee
i	i
iː	ii
ɑ	à
ɑː	àà
o	o
oː	oo
u	u
uː	uu

II. Chorote

Iyojwaʼajaʼ

The practical orthography of Iyojwaʼajaʼ of does not represent all the relevant phonetic and phonological distinctions. The UTS transcription for Iyojwaʼajaʼ corresponds to the practical orthography in the following way.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	pʼ
t	t
tʼ	tʼ
c	ts
cʼ	tsʼ
č	ch
k	k
kʼ	kʼ
s	s
h	j
l	l
m	m
n	n
w	w
y	y
ʔ	ʼ
a	a
ɛ /e/	e
e /i, e/	e
i	i
CʸV	CiV
ɔ /o/	o
o /o, u/	o
u	u

Manjui

The UTS transcription for Manjui corresponds to the practical orthography in the following way. Note that the open and close allophones of the vowels /i e u o/ are represented in UTS in order to ensure comparability with the data of other Chorote varieties.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	ʼp
t	t
tʼ	ʼt
k	k
kʼ	ʼk
s	s
sʼ	ʼs
k	k
l	l
m	m
n	n
w	w
y	y
š	z
ʔ	ʼ
a	a
ɛ	e
e	e
ei̯	ei
i	i
CʸV	CiV
ɔ	o
o	o
ʊ	u
u	u

Iyoʼawujwaʼ

The Iyoʼawujwaʼ forms given here follow the transcriptions in [Gerzenstein 1983].

III. Nivaĉle

The UTS transcription for Nivaĉle corresponds to the practical orthography in the following way.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	pʼ
t	t
tʼ	tʼ
ts	c, qu, ĉ
tsʼ	cʼ, quʼ
č	ch
čʼ	chʼ
k	c, qu, ĉ
kʼ	cʼ, quʼ
ʼ	ʔ
ɸ	f
ɬ	lh
s	s
š	sh
x	j
m	m
n	n
β	v
y	y
k^l	cl, ĉl
a	a
ɑ	ô
e	e
i	i
o	o
u	u
Vʔ	VV

In [Campbell et al. 2020], several additional graphemes are used: {7} for ʔ, {fh} for ɸ, {w} for β.

IV. Maká

The UTS transcription for Maká corresponds to the practical orthography in the following way.

UTS	orthography
p	p
pʼ	pʼ
t	t
tʼ	tʼ
ts	ts
tsʼ	tsʼ
k	k
kʼ	kʼ
q	q
qʼ	qʼ
ʼ	ʔ
f	f
ɬ	ɫ
s	s
x	j
χ	x
m	m
n	n
w	w, u (in the sequence wi {ui})
l	l
y	y (before V), i (elsewhere)
a	a
e	e
i	i
o	o
u	u
Vː	VV

In [Gerzenstein 1999], the symbols x and X are used for x {j} and χ {x}, respectively, and preglottalization in consonants is left untranscribed. Preglottalized consonants are represented in recent publications, such as Maká primers and the Maká version of the New Testament.

Database compiled and annotated by: André Nikulin (August 2016), updated by André Nikulin and Javier Carol (May 2024).