Chamacoco is a Zamucoan language spoken in Paraguay by the Chamacoco people. It is also known as Xamicoco or Xamacoco, although the tribe itself prefers the name Ishír (which is also spelled Ɨshɨr, Ishiro, Yshyr) and sometimes Jewyo.[2] When the term Ishiro (or yshyro or ɨshɨro) is used to refer to the language, it is an abbreviation for Ishir(o) ahwoso, literally meaning 'the words, the language of the Chamacoco people'.[3] It is spoken by a traditionally hunter-gatherer society that now practices agriculture. Its speakers are of all ages, and generally speak Spanish or Guarani as second and third languages.[4]
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Andrés Ozuna Ortiz reads a Chamacoco myth [in Spanish]
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Cultura Yshir Ybytoso
Transcription
When we talk of the truth we don't mix words. the truth only can appear if we dont mix it and contort it and make it ugly. The truth is clean, unique and untainted. The truth is always real. If something is the truth no one can add other words to it, then that wouldn't be the truth. This truth comes from the water god SHMUERTA, she left this truth inside of each Ishir. So, a person can speak about the truth that has all of these things( pure, unique untainted) because it came from the goddess of water and the old ancestor passed it down to that person. The truth exists forever, it cannot be changed in the future, it will always be inside of each Ishir. When one says a thing that is true, his thoughts are true/real and are equal to something that he can't imagine or buy. The truth comes from each thought and we say these things. Each Ishir depends on that which one has within himself. If you don't use the truth that is demanded of you then you will not live a healthy life, your life will be clumsy. When there exists an Ishir that does not try to drink well or look for a way to say the truth, this person will never be in a good/healthy state because he doesn't use the laws of the gods, which they gave to us through the ancestors. The water goddess had left this truth in each Ishir. For this reason, we believe that that the real is something very important that each person should always say in his own interior. we cannot say that the tradition is good or bad because through this through traditions, the Ishir know that the good exists. Tradition is that which leaves the truth. Each tradition, ceremony and rite come from the fact that before we search for it, the gods and the ancestors had already left us the truth. We know the truth through our ancestors. They gave us the rules to follow, thus manifesting the truth in all aspects of life. After much time the the thing of the modern world had changed the customs of each Ishir because the Ishirs had known things previously that they don't know now. These changes have produced an interior tremor in the rites and the ceremonies because the Ishir already is not predisposed to say the truth as before. Now the Ishir is sad, alone and does not have any happiness because the modern world has killed the truth within him. Now his life has problems. Shamans discus these ideas that I have just said and these ideas come from one word because it would be based in the roots of the mountain of mother earth. Many people had been leaving the way to the truth because they already don't know the principle of the forest. After time that which has taken other CREINCIAS returned to ask the goddess of water to say plainly the word. Its NAUERTA the SCUENTTA that their lives can follow many times, if they comply to the rules always. The true way is inside each Ishir. I will say to them/you all that which is real and if you don;t do that, you can ask that which she had advised, through the ancients, as mandates. We follow a tip to be the truth to obtain discipline tranquillity, peace and good fruit. this ends the advice.
Classification
Chamacoco is classified as a Zamucoan language, along with Ayoreo. Both languages are considered endangered.[5] There is relatively little information about the Zamucoan family.
Chamacoco speakers live in the northeastern part of the Chaco Boreal at the origin of the Río Verde in Paraguay.[4] Four dialects of Chamacoco have been identified: Héiwo, in the Fuerte Olimpo area; Ebidóso and Hório, spoken in the Bahía Negra region; and Tomaráho, in the Alto Paraná Atlantic forests.[2]
The speakers of Hório and Ebidóso were estimated to be 800 in 1970. Fewer than 200 people spoke Tomaráho then. Back in 1930, over 2000 people were estimated to speak Chamacoco.[2]
Verb inflection is based on personal prefixes and the language is tenseless.[6] For example, chɨpɨrme teu dosh means "the kingfisher eats fish", while chɨpɨra teu wichɨ dosht means "the kingfisher will eat fish." Nouns can be divided into possessable and non-possessable. Possessable nouns are characterized by a prefixation whereby the noun agrees with the possessor or genitival modifier.[7] There is no difference between nouns and adjectives in suffixation.[8] The syntax is characterized by the presence of para-hypotactical structures.[9] The comparison of inflectional morphology has shown remarkable similarities with Ayoreo and Ancient Zamuco.[10]
An Ɨshɨr (Chamacoco) Living Dictionary is currently under construction, spearheaded by Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. This project is being curated in close collaboration with Ɨshɨr language activists such as Andres Ozuna Ortiz.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ||
| Close-mid | e | ||
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open-mid | ɔ | ||
| Open | a | ɑ |
All vowels except for /ɑ, ə/ have nasalized forms.[11]
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | g | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡ʃ | ||||
| voiced | d͡ʒ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʃ | h | ||
| voiced | z | ʒ | ɣ | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Approximant | plain | ɹ | w | |||
| lateral | l | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||
Sample words and phrases
- matah debich (IPA: a debitʃ) – finger
- aap (IPA: ap) – fox/lion cub
- tɨkɨn chɨp owa (IPA: tɪgɪ ʃebɔa) – thank you very much
- ich amatak (IPA: ɪdʒ amaɹtɔk) – he eats a lot
- ye takmape (IPA: je taɣmabe) – he does not eat a lot
- tɨkɨya oyetɨke (IPA: tɪkija ɔɪhetɪgɪ) – I bought a dog for you
- yok (IPA: jɔk) – I
- ich takaha (IPA: i taɣaha) – I go
References
- ^ "Chamacoco". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
- ^ a b c Chamacoco: Orientation. Every Culture. 2008 (retrieved 29 March 2009)
- ^ Ciucci, Luca 2011. L’amico di D’Annunzio e la tribù perduta: in Sudamerica alla ricerca dei confini di Babele. Normale. Bollettino dell’associazione normalisti, 1-2. 23-28. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-04. Retrieved 2013-07-21.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ a b Gordon, Raymond G., Jr., ed. Chamacoco: A Language of Paraguay. Ethnologue. 2005 (retrieved 29 March 2009)
- ^ Sorosoro: Zamucoan family Archived 2011-01-04 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Ciucci, Luca 2009. Elementi di morfologia verbale del chamacoco. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, n.s. 8. [1] Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ciucci, Luca 2010. La flessione possessiva del chamacoco. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, n.s. 9,2. [2] Archived 2016-11-15 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ciucci, Luca 2013. Chamacoco lexicographical supplement. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, n.s. 12. [3] Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Luca Ciucci 2012. Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Para-Hypotaxis in the Zamucoan Languages. In: Linguistic Discovery 10.1: 89-111. [4]
- ^ Ciucci, Luca 2013. Inflectional morphology in the Zamucoan languages. Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Ph.D. thesis.
- ^ "SAPhon – South American Phonological Inventories". linguistics.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
External links
- Ɨshɨr (Chamacoco) Living Dictionary
- Sorosoro Project
- ELAR archive of Documentation of the Tomarâho variety of Chamacoco, Paraguay
This page was last edited on 5 September 2023, at 02:24