Mapuzungun, Chedungun, Chezungun, Chilidungun, Araucano, Araucanian, Pehuenche, Lafekenche, Pikunche, Rankülche, Pampa

Language Family: Isolate
ISO 639:arn
Glottolog:mapu1245
Status:Threatened.

Mapudungun, also known as Mapuche, Araucano, and several other names, is spoken in central and southern Chile, with its present-day distribution concentrated mainly in the Araucanía region. At the time of Spanish arrival in the sixteenth century, the language extended over a much wider area, from the Aconcagua River in the north to the island of Chiloé in the south. Today, Mapudungun is also spoken in west-central Argentina, particularly in the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, and La Pampa.

Although Mapudungun has a considerably larger number of speakers than any other Indigenous language of the Southern Cone, it is nevertheless classified as threatened (for an overview, see Zúñiga & Olate 2017).

The language is exceptionally well documented. Early grammatical descriptions date back to the colonial period and include works by the Jesuit missionaries Luis de Valdivia (1606), Andrés Fabrés (1765), and Bernhard Havestadt (1777). Important modern grammatical studies include Rodolfo Lenz’s Araucanian Studies (1895–1897; also Villena et al. 2021), the grammar by Félix de Augusta (1903), Adalberto Salas’ grammar with texts (1992), Ineke Smeets’ grammar (1989), and Fernando Zúñiga’s grammar (2000). Introductory works include Catrileo (1987), Fernández-Garay (2005), and Zúñiga (2006). In the field of lexicography, Augusta’s dictionary (1916) remains particularly important due to its comprehensiveness. In addition, a substantial body of texts has been published, some of them translated and glossed, including Augusta’s Lecturas Araucanas (1910), the autobiography of Pascual Coña (Moesbach 1930), and the collections by Golbert (1975).

Mapudungun is generally regarded as a language isolate, as no convincing genetic relationship with any other language or language family has been demonstrated (see Viegas Barros 1994 for an overview).

Internally, the language exhibits dialectal variation. Northern varieties have largely disappeared due to prolonged contact with Spanish. The southernmost variety (sometimes termed Huilliche), has sometimes been treated as a separate language; however, most scholars consider it a phonologically divergent but morphologically conservative dialect of Mapudungun (e.g. Sadowsky et al. 2015; Zúñiga 2000: 25–26).

Table 1 presents the consonant inventory of Mapudungun as analyzed by Zúñiga (2000: 5). Square brackets indicate IPA realizations as well as dialectal variation. It should be noted that some differences in notation also reflect alternative phonological analyses (cf. Adelaar & Muysken 2004: 517f).

According to Zúñiga (2000: 5), the fricative /s/ is marginal in the phonological system. It occurs primarily in certain sound-symbolic forms (e.g. kure ‘wife’, kuse ‘old woman’) and in Spanish loanwords (see also Smeets 1989: 38).

The language displays an interdental-alveolar contrast in the nasal series, opposing /m/, /n̪/, /n/, /ɲ/, and /ŋ/. This five-way distinction is typologically uncommon, although it is not preserved in all dialects (Sadowsky et al. 2013).

In the southern dialects, the phoneme /ch/ may be realized either as palatal [tʃ] or alveolar [ts], while /tr/ shows variation between [tɽ] and [tʂ] (Zúñiga 2000: 5).

Table 1: Consonants in Mapudungun (Zúñiga 2000, 5)

	Labial	Interdental	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar
Plosive	p		t̪	t			k
Fricative	f [f, ɸ]	d [θ, ð]		s
Affricate					ch [tʃ, ts]	tr [ʈʂ]
Nasal	m		n̪	n [ɲ]	ñ [ny]		ng
Liquid			l̪	l	ll [ly]	r [ɹ, ʐ]
Glide	w				y		g

Table 2. presents the vocalic system of Mapudungun accoding to Zúñiga (2000, 6). The high central vowel /ü/ has two realizations: similar to [ɨ] word-initially and word-finally and as a shwa between consonants and word-initially.

Table 2: Vowels in Mapudungun (Zúñiga 2000, 6)

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

References

• Adelaar, Willem & Peter Muysken. (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge University Press.
• de Augusta, Félix José (1903). Gramática araucana. Valdivia: Imprenta Central J. Lampert.
• de Augusta, Félix José (1910). Lecturas araucanas. Valdivia: Imprenta de la Prefectura Apostólica.
• de Augusta, Félix José (1916). Diccionario Araucano–Español Español–Araucano. Santiago de Chile: Universitaria.
• Catrileo, María (1987) Mapudunguyu. Curso de lengua mapuche. Valdivia: Universidad Austral de Chile.
• Febrés, A. 1765. Arte de la Lengua General del Reyno de Chile. Lima: Calle de la Encarnación.
• Fernández-Garay, Ana (2005). Parlons Mapuche: La langue des Araucans. Paris: L'Harmattan.
• Golbert de Goodbar, Perla (1975). Epu peñiwen (‘los dos hermanos’). Cuento tradicional araucano. Buenos Aires: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Educación, Sección Lenguas Indígenas, Instituto Torcuato di Tello.
• Lenz, Rodolfo (1895–7) Estudios araucanos. Materiales para el estudio de la lengua, la literatura y las costumbres de los indios mapuches o araucanos. Santiago: Imprenta Cervantes.
• Moesbach, Ernesto Wilhelm de (1930) Vida y costumbres de los indígenas araucanos en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, presentadas en la autobiografía del indígena Pascual Coña. Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Cervantes.
• Salas, Adalberto (1992). El mapuche o araucano. Fonología, gramática y antología de cuentos. Madrid: MAPFRE.
• Sadowsky, Scott, Painequeo, Hécor, Salamanca, Gastón, & Avelino, Heriberto (2013). Mapudungun. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43(1), 87–96. 
• Sadowsky, Scott, María José Aninao, María Isabel Cayunao & Paul Heggarty (2015). Huilliche: ¿geolecto del mapudungun o lengua propia? Una mirada desde la fonética y la fonología de las consonantes. In: Ana Fernández-Garay & María Alejandra Regúnaga (eds.): Lingüística indígena sudamericana: aspectos descriptivos, comparativos y areales. Buenos Aires: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 23-51.
• Smeets, Ineke (1989). A Mapuche grammar, Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University.
• Valdivia, L. de 1606. Arte, y gramática general de la lengua que corre en todo el Reyno de Chile, con un vocabulario y confessionario. Lima: Francisco del Canto.
• Viegas Barros, J. Pedro (1994). La clasificación de las lenguas patagónicas. Revisión de hipótesis del grupo lingüístico "andino meridional" de Joseph H. Greenberg. CINA 15, 167-184.
• Villena, Belén, Elisa Loncon & Benjamín Molineaux (2021). Kuyfike awkiñ dungu, ecos de voces antiguas. Textos de la tradición oral mapuche recopilados a fines del siglo XIX. Santiago de Chile: Pehuén.
• Zúñiga, Fernando (2000). Mapudungun. Munich: Lincom Europa.
• Zúñiga, Fernando (2006). Mapudungun: El habla mapuche. Introducción a la lengua mapuche, con notas comparativas y un CD. Santiago: Centro de Estudios Públicos.
• Zúñiga, Fernando, & Olate, Aldo (2017). El estado de la lengua mapuche, diez años después. In: Isabel Aninat, Verónica Figueroa, Ricardo González (eds.): El pueblo mapuche en el siglo XXI. Santiago de Chile: CEP, pp. 343-374.