Ayoreo language

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

Ayoreo is spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia, with 3,100 speakers total, 1,700 of whom live 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 Cordillera Province, in the Santa Cruz Department.

Bertinetto (2009) reports that Ayoreo has the 5 vowels {{IPA|/a, e, i, o, u/}}, which appear both as oral and nasal.{{sfn|Bertinetto|2009|p=8}}

{{IPAslink|j}} can also be heard as {{IPAblink|dʒ}}.{{sfn|Bertinetto|2009|p=9}}

The prototypical constituent order is subject-verb-object, as seen in the following examples:{{sfn|Bertinetto|2009|pp=45-46}}

{{interlinear|indent=2|lang=ayo

|Sérgio ch-ingo caratai aroi tome Ramon.

|Sérgio 3-show jaguar skin to Ramon

|‘Sérgio showed the jaguar’s skin to Ramon’.}}

{{interlinear|indent=2|lang=ayo

|Enga ore ch-ijnoque Víctor aja señóra Emília i-guijnai.

|{{gcl|COORD|coordinative conjunction}} 3P 3-carry Víctor towards señora Emília house

|‘And they carried Víctor to Señora Emília’s house’.}}

Ayoreo is a fusional language.{{harvnb|Bertinetto|2009}}{{page needed|date=August 2024}}

Verbs agree with their subjects, but there is no tense-inflection.{{sfn|Ciucci|2007–2008}}{{page needed|date=August 2024}} Consider the following paradigm, which has prefixes marking person and suffixes marking number:{{sfn|Bertinetto|2009|p=29}}

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

Ayoreo is a mood-prominent language. Nouns can be divided into possessable and non-possessable; possessor agreement is expressed through a prefixation.{{sfn|Ciucci|2010}}{{page needed|date=August 2024}} The syntax of Ayoreo is characterized by the presence of para-hypotactical structures.{{sfn|Bertinetto|Ciucci|2012}}{{page needed|date=August 2024}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal |last=Bertinetto |first=Pier Marco |year=2009 |url=http://linguistica.sns.it/QLL/QLL09/Bertinetto_1.PDF |title=Ayoreo (Zamuco). A grammatical sketch |journal=Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. |volume=8}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Bertinetto |first1=Pier Marco |first2=Luca |last2=Ciucci |year=2012 |title=Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Para-Hypotaxis in the Zamucoan Languages |journal=Linguistic Discovery |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=89–111 |doi=10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.404|s2cid=14026911 }}
• {{cite book |last=Briggs |first=Janet R. |year=1972 |title=Quiero contarles unos casos del Beni |publisher=Summer Institute of Linguistics in collaboration with the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Dirección Nacional de Antropología |location=Cochabamba}}
• {{cite journal |last=Briggs |first=Janet R. |year=1973 |title=Ayoré narrative analysis |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=155–163|doi=10.1086/465259 }}
• {{cite journal |last=Ciucci |first=Luca |year=2007–2008 |url=http://linguistica.sns.it/QLL/QLL07_08/Ciucci_2.PDF |title=Indagini sulla morfologia verbale dell'ayoreo |journal=Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale |volume=7 |lang=it}}
• {{cite journal |last=Ciucci |first=Luca |year=2010 |url=http://linguistica.sns.it/QLL/QLL10/Ciucci_ayoreo.pdf |title=La flessione possessiva dell'ayoreo |journal=Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa |volume=9 |issue=2 |lang=it}}
• {{cite book |last1=Higham |first1=Alice |last2=Morarie |first2=Maxine |first3=Greta |last3=Paul |year=2000 |title=Ayoré-English dictionary |volume=1-3 |location=Sanford, FL |publisher=New Tribes Mission}}
• {{cite journal |author-link=Branislava Sušnik |last=Sušnik |first=Branislava J. |year=1963 |title=La lengua de los Ayoweos - Moros |series=Etnolingüística |volume=8 |journal=Boletín de la Sociedad Científica del Paraguay y del Museo Etnográfico |location=Asunción |pages=1–148}}
• {{cite book |author-link=Branislava Sušnik |last=Sušnik |first=Branislava J. |year=1973 |title=La lengua de los Ayoweo-Moros. Estructura gramatical y fraseario etnográfico |location=Asunción |publisher=Museo Etnográfico “Andrés Barbero” |lang=es}}

• {{cite video |title=Ayoreo man recounts first encounter with bulldozer |format=streamed video |publisher=Survival International |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0O0aeINaHk |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/k0O0aeINaHk |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}
• {{cite web |title=Lengua ayoéro |publisher=Promotora Española de Linguistica (PROEL) |language=Spanish |url=http://www.proel.org/index.php?pagina=mundo/amerindia/ecuatorial/samukoan/ayoreo}} The page provides colored linguistic maps (habitat, other language families).
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110104210120/http://www.sorosoro.org/en/zamucoan-languages Sorosoro Project]
• [http://www.ru.nl/lenguasdebolivia/ Lenguas de Bolivia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190904080403/http://www.ru.nl/lenguasdebolivia/ |date=2019-09-04 }} (online edition)
• [http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/0296 ELAR archive of Documentation and Description of Paraguayan Ayoreo, a Language of the Chaco]
• [https://ids.clld.org/contributions/297 Ayoreo] (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)

{{Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos}}

{{Languages of Bolivia}}

{{Languages of Paraguay}}

{{South American languages}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayoreo Language}}

Category:Languages of Bolivia

Category:Languages of Paraguay

Category:Indigenous languages of the South American Chaco

Category:Zamucoan languages

Category:Subject–verb–object languages

Category:Chaco linguistic area