Chono language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Chono | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Chile |
| Region | Chonos Archipelago, Chiloé Archipelago |
| Ethnicity | Chono people |
| Extinct | 1875[citation needed] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | chon1248 |
 | |
Chono is a poorly attested extinct language of confusing classification. It is attested primarily from an 18th-century catechism,[1] which is not translated into Spanish. Various placenames in Chiloé Archipelago have Chono etymologies.[2]
Viegas Barros, who postulates a relationship between Kawésqar and Yahgan, believes that 45% of the Chono vocabulary and grammatical forms correspond to one of those languages, though it is not close to either.[3]
Glottolog concludes that "There are lexical parallels with Mapuche as well as Qawesqar, ... but the core is clearly unrelated." They characterize Chono as a language isolate, though only as it relates to Mapuche and Kawésqar.
Campbell (2012) concludes that a language called Wayteka or Wurk-wur-we by Llaras Samitier (1967), and which also went by the geographical name "Chono", is spurious, with the source material being a list of mixed and perhaps invented vocabulary.[4]
