Günün-Chonan is a proposed language family including the Chon languages (Aonekko ‘A’ien, Selk’nam, Haush and Teushen) alongside its northern neighbour, Günün a Yajüch (a.k.a. Puelche). The proposal was developed by our Co-Investigator, Pedro Viegas Barros (2023).

Pamapa, Puelche, Gününa Küna
Language Family: Chon?
ISO 639: pue
Glottolog: puel1244
Status: Dormant.

Günün a Yajüch, better known as Puelche, is a dormant language once spoken across a broad area extending from the southern part of present-day Buenos Aires Province to the southern part of Chubut Province in Argentina. The name Puelche, which is of Mapudungun origin (literally ‘eastern people’), is somewhat misleading, as it has also been used more broadly to refer to other groups living east of the Andes, most notably the Mapuche, with whom Günün a Yajüch speakers were in contact (cf. Viegas Barros 2005, 68).

Knowledge of the language is based on limited and fragmentary sources. The most important of these include the vocabulary compiled by Lafone Quevedo at the end of the nineteenth century (Malvestitti & Orden 2019), the vocabulary and grammatical notes collected by Lehmann-Nietsche at the beginning of the twentieth century (Malvestitti & Orden 2014), and the additional notes and analyses published by Casamiquela (1983).

According to Viegas Barros (2005, 69), Günün a Yajüch appears to be a language isolate, that is, a language with no clearly demonstrable phylogenetic relationship to any other known language.

On the basis of the available documentation, Viegas Barros (2005, 69) has proposed a reconstruction of the segmental phonology of the language. Tables 1 and 2 present the reconstructed consonant and vowel inventories, respectively.

Table 1: Reconstructed consonants (Viegas Barros 2005, 69)

Manner / Place	Labial	Dental/Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Voiceless stops	p	t	c, č	k	q
Voiced stops	b	d		g	ɢ
Ejectives	pʼ	tʼ	cʼ, čʼ	kʼ
Fricatives		s	š	x
Nasals	m	n
Approximants	w	y	ʎ
Laterals		l, ł
Rhotics		r
Glottal

Table 2: Reconstructed vowels (Viegas Barros 2005, 69)

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low	a

References

• Casamiquela, Rodolfo. (1983). Nociones de gramática del gününa-küne. Paris: CNRS.
• Malvestitti, Marisa & María Emilia Orden. (2014). Günün a yajütshü: El Vocabulario Puelche documentado por Roberto Lehmann-Nitsche. Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de La Pampa.
• Malvestitti, Marisa & María Emilia Orden. (2019). La documentación de las lenguas patagónicas en el gabinete de Samuel A. Lafone Quevedo. El Vocabulario Guenaken », Journal de la Société des américanistes, 105-2, 133-164.
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro. (2005). Voces en el viento. Raíces lingüísticas de la Patagonia. Buenos Aires: Mondragón Ediciones.

Aonik'enk, Tehuelche
Language Family: Chon
ISO 639: teh
Glottolog: tehu1242
Status: Dormant

Aonekko ʾAʾien, better known as Tehuelche, also Southern Tehuelche, is an extinct Günün-Chonan language formerly spoken between the Santa Cruz river (Santa Cruz Province), Argentina down to the Magallanes Straight, Tierra del Fuego. The last speaker died in 2019.
Aonekko ʾAʾien is considered a member of the Günün-Chonan (also Chon) group along with Haush, Selknam, Teushen and Gününa Küne (Fernández Garay 1998, 30f; Viegas Barros 2005, 47, based on Lehmann-Nitsche 1913). Dialectal differences within the vast area where Tehuelche was spoken have been harder to argue due to lack of data.
The main sources for the language are a grammar by Schmid (1910), and the extensive work by Fernández Garay, including a grammar (1998), glossed texts (Fernández Garay & Hernández 2006) and other linguistic publications (e.g. Fernández Garay 2007).

Table 1. displays the consonants found and Table 2. the vowels in Tehuelche described by Fernández Garay (1998).

Table 1: Consonants in Aonekko ʾAʾien (Fernández Garay 1998, 87)

Manner / Place	Labial	Dental/Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops (voiceless)	p	t	č	k	q
Ejectives	pʼ	tʼ	čʼ	kʼ	qʼ
Voiced stops	b	d		g	G
Fricatives		s	š	x	X	h
Nasals	m	n
Approximants	w		j
Laterals		l
Rhotics		r
Glottal						ʔ

Table 2: Vowels in Tehuelche (Fernández Garay 1998, 87f)

	Anterior	Central	Posterior
Mid	e, e:		o, o:
Low		a, o:

References

• Fernández Garay, A. (1998): El tehuelche. Una lengua en vías de extinción. Valdivia: Estudios Filológicos.
• Fernández Garay, A. (2007). “Coexistencia de dos sistemas sintácticos en tehuelche”. IJAL 73: 1. 114-125.
• Fernández Garay, A. & Hernández, G. (2006). Textos tehuelches (aonek’o ʔaʔjen). Homenaje a Jorge Suárez. Languages of the world/Texts collections, 24. München: LINCOM-Europa.
• Lehmann-Nitsche, R. (1913). El grupo lingüístico tshon de los territorios magallánicos, Revista del Museo de La Plata, Vol. 22, 217-276.
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro. (2005). Voces en el viento. Raíces lingüísticas de la Patagonia. Buenos Aires: Mondragón Ediciones.

Manek'enk
Language Family: Chon
ISO 639: —
Glottolog: haus1240
Status: Extinct

Haush is a dormant language once spoken in the Mitre peninsula, the southeastern tip of the island of Tierra del Fuego.  It is likely that the language ceased to be spoken during the first half of the twentieth century.

The language is only known through fragmentary evidence, often loose words. Some relevant documents of the language include the vocabulary by Carlos Speganizzi (Viegas Barros & Malvestitti 2019) and Lehmann-Nietsche (Malvestitti 2015).

Based on the few data available, Viegas Barros (2005, 53) has attempted to reconstruct the phonology of this language. These are presented in Table 1. (consonants) and Table 2. (vowels).

Table 1. Reconstructed consonants of Haush (Viegas Barros 2005, 53)

Labial	Dental/Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
p, p’	t, t’	č	k, k’
	s	š	x	h
m	n
	l, r
w		y
				(ʔ)

Table 2. Reconstructed vowels of Haush (Viegas Barros 2005, 53)

Front	Central	Back
i, e	a	o, u

References

• Malvestitti, Marisa. (2015). Palabras Selknam: El vocabulario Ōōna recopilado por Roberto Lehmann-Nitsche. Magallania (Punta Arenas), 43(1), 69-89.
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro. (2005). Voces en el viento. Raíces lingüísticas de la Patagonia. Buenos Aires: Mondragón Ediciones.
• Viegas Barros, José Pedro y Marisa Malvestitti. (2019). Un manuscrito de Carlos Spegazzini con datos inéditos sobre la lengua haush. Indiana, 36(2), pp.101-128.

Ona, Aona, Choon
Language Family: Chon.
ISO 639:ona
Glottolog:onaa1245
Status: dormant

Selk’nam, also known as Ona, is a dormant language formerly spoken on the island of Tierra del Fuego in the Southern Cone. The language likely ceased to be spoken by the end of the twentieth century. There seems to have been three dialects of Selk’nam, as discussed by Najlis (1973, 5).

The language is documented through a range of sources. Two grammatical descriptions are available, by Najlis (1973; 1993) and Rojas-Berscia (2014). Additional important materials include the wordlist compiled by Lehmann-Nitsche (1913), the vocabulary and phonological notes recorded by Bridges (1896), and the dictionary published by Zenone (1896).

Lehmann-Nietsche (1913) classified Selk’nam as a member of the Chon language family, together with Tehuelche, Teushen, and Haush (see also Viegas Barros 2005, 47f).

Tables 1 and 2 present the segmental phonology of Selk’nam, specifically its consonant and vowel inventories, based on the analysis of Najlis (1973).

Table 1: Consonants in Selk’nam (Najlis 1973)

Manner / Place	Labial	Dental	Apical	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Laryngeal
Plain stops	p	t		č	k	q	ʔ
Glottalized stops	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ	qʼ
Fricatives		s	ṣ	š	x		h
Nasals	m	n
Laterals		l
Vibrants			r
Glides	w			y

Table 2: Consonants in Selk’nam (Najlis 1973)

Height	Front	Central	Back
High – Close	e		o
High – Open	ɛ		ɔ
Low – Close		a
Low – Open		α

References

• Bridges, Thomas (1896). Vocabulario y frases en idioma ona derivados del sistema fonético Ellis, en Bascopé Julio, J., & Domínguez, V. (2023). Capítulo 3. Vocabulario y frases en idioma ona derivados del sistema fonético Ellis, 1896. In: M. Malvestitti & M. Farro (eds.), Documentos inéditos en lenguas fuegopatagónicas (1880-1950), UNRN, 137-175.
• Lehmann-Nitsche, R. (1913). El grupo lingüístico tshon de los territorios magallánicos", Revista del Museo de La Plata, Vol. 22, 217-276.
• Najlis, Elena (1973). Lengua selknam. Filología y Lingüística 3. Buenos Aires: Universidad del Salvador.
• Najlis, Elena (1993). Gramática Selknam. Conicet.
• Rojas-Berscia, Luis Miguel (2014). A Heritage Reference Grammar of Selkʼnam ( MA Thesis). Nijmegen: Radboud University.
• Zenone, Giovanni (1896) Diccionario indio ona-español in Bascopé Julio, J., & Nicoletti, M. A. (2023). Capítulo 4. Diccionario indio ona-español. In: M. Malvestitti & M. Farro (eds.), Documentos inéditos en lenguas fuegopatagónicas (1880-1950), UNRN, 175-206.

Tehues
Language Family: Chon.
ISO 639:
Glottolog: teus1236
Status: Extinct.

Teushen is an extinct language that was once spoken in the region between the Santa Cruz and Chubut rivers in present-day Argentina. Viegas Barros (2005, 64) estimates that the language most likely became extinct at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Our knowledge of Teushen is extremely limited and is based on a corpus of approximately 600 recorded lexemes drawn from a small number of historical sources. The most important of these are the vocabularies compiled by Viedma (1837) and Lehmann-Nietsche (1913). Teushen has at times been confused with Tehuelche (also known as Patagón; currently official name: Aonekko ’A’ien), a misunderstanding that probably stems from the scarce and fragmentary nature of the available documentation (cf. Viegas Barros 2005, 64-65 for an overview).

On the basis of the comparative analysis carried out by Lehmann-Nietsche (1913), Teushen has been classified as a member of the Chon language family, together with Tehuelche, Selknam, and Haush (see also Viegas Barros 2005, 47f).

Drawing on the extant sources, Viegas Barros (2005, 65) has proposed a reconstruction of the segmental phonology of Teushen. Tables 1 and 2 present the reconstructed consonant and vowel inventories, respectively.

Table 1. Reconstructed consonants (Viegas Barros 2005, 65, modified according Viegas Barros ms)

Manner / Place	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Voiceless stops	p	t	č	k	q	ʔ
Voiced stops		d		g	G
Ejectives	pʼ	tʼ		kʼ	q'
Fricatives		s	š	x	X
Nasals	m	n
Laterals		l
Rhotics		r
Approximants	w		y

Uvular consonants are not graphically represented in the sources, but they are reliably recoverable of loanwords from Teushen to Aonekko ’A’ien (Viegas Barros ms).

Table 2. Reconstructed vowels (Viegas Barros 2005, 65)

	Front	Central	Back
Mid	e		o
Low		a

References

• Lehmann-Nitsche, Robert (1913) El grupo ling¨u´ıstico Tshon de los territorios magallánicos. Revista del Museo de la Plata 22, pp. 217–76. Buenos Aires.
• Viedma, Antonio de. (1837). Catálogo de algunas voces que ha sido posible oír y entender a los indios patagones que frecuentan las inmediaciones de la Bahía de San Julián; comunicado al virrey de Buenos Aires, don Juan José de Vertiz, en carta de 8 de febrero de 1781. En Pedro De Angelis (comp.), Colección de obras y documentos relativos a la Historia antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Río de La Plata, tomo vi (pp.xv-xvii). Imprenta del Estado.
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro. (2005). Voces en el viento. Raíces lingüísticas de la Patagonia. Buenos Aires: Mondragón Ediciones.
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro (ms). ¿De dónde vienen las consonantes uvulares de la lengua aonekko ’a’ien (tehuelche)?. Paper presented in the ICHL 27, Santiago de Chile, 18/22 August 2025. PowerPoint version available in: https://www.academia.edu/143845964/_2025_De_d%C3%B3nde_vienen_las_consonantes_uvulares_en_Aonekko_Aien_Tehuelche_?auto=download