Wichí Lhamtés Nocten Explained

Wichí Lhamtés Nocten
Nativename:	Weenhayek
States:	Bolivia, Argentina
Ethnicity:	Wichí
Date:	1994
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	American
Fam1:	Matacoan
Fam2:	Wichi languages
Iso3:	mtp
Glotto:	wich1262
Glottorefname:	Wichi Lhamtes Nocten
Region:	Tarija Department (Bolivia), Salta Province (Argentina)
Elp:	1850
Elpname:	Wichí (shared)

Wichí Lhamtés Nocten, or Weenhayek, is a Wichí language primarily spoken in Bolivia, where an estimated 1,810 Wichí people spoke it in 1994. An additional one hundred people spoke the language in Argentina in 1994. In Bolivia, the language is spoken in the north-central Tarija Department, southwest of Pilcomayo River, and in Cordillera de Pirapo. In Argentina, it is spoken in from the northern border south to Tartagal, Salta. The language is also called Mataco, Bolivian, Mataco Nocten, Nocten, Noctenes, Oktenai, and Weenhayek; the last name is used in the Bolivian constitution of 2009.^[1]

Phonology

! rowspan="2"
central	lateral	plain	Palatal	labial	pal.		Uvular	Glottal
Labial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar			Uvular	Glottal
Plosive		pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/				pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /ink/
Affricate			pronounced as /ink/
Fricative			pronounced as /ink/			pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/			pronounced as /ink/
Nasal	voiced	pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/
Nasal	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Lateral	voiced			pronounced as /ink/
Lateral	fricative			pronounced as /ink/
Approximant	voiced				pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/
Approximant	voiceless				pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/

/kʲ/ may be heard as an affricate sound [tʃ] in some dialects.
Sounds /p, t, kʲ, kʷ, q, ts/ may also be heard as aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʲʰ, kʷʰ, qʰ, tsʰ] when preceding /h/, or as glottalized [pʼ, tʼ, kʲʼ, kʷʼ, qʼ, tsʼ] when preceding /ʔ/.
Sounds /m, n, l, j, w/ within the position of /ʔ/ are also glottalized as [ʼm, ʼn, ʼl, ʼj, ʼw].^[2]

Vowels in the Nocten dialect!!Front!Back
Close	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Open	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/

Notes and References

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mtp "Wichí Lhamtés Nocten."
Book: Claesson, Kenneth . A Phonological Outline of Mataco-Noctenes . The University of Chicago Press . 1994 . International Journal of American Linguistics 60, no. 1 . 1–38.

Wichí Lhamtés Nocten Explained

Phonology

See also

Notes and References