Ayoreo language

Ayoreo is a Zamucoan language spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia. It is also known as Morotoco, Moro, Ayoweo, Ayoré, and Pyeta Yovai. However, the name "Ayoreo" is more common in Bolivia, and "Morotoco" in Paraguay. It is spoken by Ayoreo, an indigenous ethnic group traditionally living on a combined hunter-gatherer and farming lifestyle.

Ayoreo
Native toParaguay, Bolivia
RegionChaco, Alto Paraguay departments (Paraguay); Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia)
EthnicityAyoreo people
Native speakers
3,160 (2011)[1]
Zamucoan
  • Ayoreo
Dialects
  • Tsiracua
Language codes
ISO 639-3ayo
qro Guarañoca
Glottologayor1240  Ayoreo
zamu1245  Zamuco
ELPAyoreo[2]

Classification

Ayoreo is classified as a Zamucoan language, along with Chamacoco. Extinct Guarañoca may have been a dialect.

Geographic distribution

Ayoreo is spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia, with 3,100 speakers total, 1700 of those in Paraguay and 1,400 in Bolivia. Within Paraguay, Ayoreo is spoken in the Chaco Department and the northern parts of the Alto Paraguay Department. In Bolivia, it is spoken in the Gran Chaco Province, in the Santa Cruz Department.

Phonology

Bertinetto (2009) reports that Ayoreo has the 5 vowels /a, e, i, o, u/, which appear both as oral and nasal.[3]

Consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p t k ʔ
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ
Affricate t͡ʃ
Fricative s h
Nasal voiceless m̥ n̥ ɲ̥
voiced m n ɲ ŋ
Approximant ɹ j w

/j/ can also be heard as [dʒ].

Grammar

The prototypical constituent order is subject-verb-object, as seen in the following examples (Bertinetto 2009:45-46):

Sérgioch-ingocarataiaroitomeRamon.
Sérgio3-showjaguarskintoRamon
‘Sérgio showed the jaguar’s skin to Ramon’.
Engaorech-ijnoqueVíctorajaseñóraEmíliai-guijnai.
COORD3P3-carryVíctortowardsseñoraEmíliahouse
‘And they carried Víctor to Señora Emília’s house’.

Ayoreo is a fusional language.[3]

Verbs agree with their subjects, but there is no tense-inflection.[4] Consider the following paradigm, which has prefixes marking person and suffixes marking number (Bertinetto 2009:29):

y-acaI plant
b-acayou plant
ch-acahe, she, they plant
y-aca-gowe plant
uac-aca-yyou (pl) plant

When the verb root contains a nasal, there are nasalized variants of the agreement affixes:

ñ-ojneI spread
m-ojneyou spread
ch-ojnehe, she, they spread
ñ-ojne-ngowe spread
uac-ojne-ñoyou (pl) spread

Ayoreo is a mood-prominent language.[3] Nouns can be divided into possessable and non-possessable; possessor agreement is expressed through a prefixation.[5] The syntax of Ayoreo is characterized by the presence of para-hypotactical structures.[6]

Notes
  1. "Ayoreo". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Ayoreo.
  3. Bertinetto, Pier Marco 2009. Ayoreo (Zamuco). A grammatical sketch. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 8 n.s.
  4. Ciucci, Luca 2007/08. Indagini sulla morfologia verbale nella lingua ayoreo. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, n.s. 7.
  5. Ciucci, Luca 2010. La flessione possessiva dell'ayoreo. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, n.s. 9,2.
  6. Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Luca Ciucci 2012. Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Para-Hypotaxis in the Zamucoan Languages. In: Linguistic Discovery 10.1: 89-111.

References
  • Bertinetto, Pier Marco 2009. Ayoreo (Zamuco). A grammatical sketch. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 8 n.s.
  • Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Luca Ciucci 2012. Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Para-Hypotaxis in the Zamucoan Languages. In: Linguistic Discovery 10.1: 89-111.
  • Briggs, Janet R. 1972. Quiero contarles unos casos del Beni. Summer Institute of Linguistics in collaboration with the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Dirección Nacional de Antropología. Cochabamba
  • Briggs, Janet R. 1973. Ayoré narrative analysis. International Journal of American Linguistics 39. 155-63.
  • Ciucci, Luca. 2007/8a. Indagini sulla morfologia verbale dell'ayoreo. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale 7.
  • Ciucci, Luca 2010. La flessione possessiva dell'ayoreo. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, n.s. 9,2
  • Higham, Alice; Morarie, Maxine; and Greta Paul. 2000. Ayoré-English dictionary, 3 volumes. Sanford, FL: New Tribes Mission.
  • Sušnik, Branislava J. 1963. La lengua de los Ayoweos - Moros. Etnolingüística 8 (Boletín de la Sociedad Científica del Paraguay y del Museo Etnográfico). Asunción 8: 1- 148.
  • Sušnik, Branislava J. 1973. La lengua de los Ayoweo-Moros. Estructura gramatical y fraseario etnográfico. Asunción: Museo Etnográfico “Andrés Barbero”.
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