Gününa Küne language

Gününa Küne (Puelche) is an extinct Chonan language formerly spoken by the Gününa Küne people in the Pampas region of Argentina. The language is also known as Gennaken (Guenaken), Northern Tehuelche, Gününa Yajüch, Ranquelche, Septentrional Austral Tehuelche and Pampa. It was also spoken by the Chechehet.

Classification

Gününa Küne has long been considered a language isolate. Based on very limited evidence, Viegas Barros (1992) suggested that Gününa Küne might be closely related to the poorly known Querandí language, spoken by the Querandí, one of the Het peoples, and Viegas Barros (2005) posited that it is related to the Chon languages.

Documentation

In 1829, D'Orbigny toured the area of southern Buenos Aires and the mouth of the Río Negro. There he collected words of the "Puelches', "Aucas' and "Tehuelches' —that is, in Günün a Iajüch, Mapuzungun and Teushen, respectively—in the vicinity of Carmen de Patagones, in a permanent settlement of linguistically heterogeneous groups.

The French traveler, intrigued by the indigenous languages of the area, arrived at the tolderías and contacted some interpreters: "In a tent of friendly Patagonians I found a woman named Lunareja who spoke enough Spanish as if to serve as an interpreter; belonged to the Puelche nation and was married to a Patagonian, so that I knew both languages equally, which was of the greatest use to me. I also knew Araucanian, but the notions of this language could be better transmitted to me by the Indians."In L'Homme américain (de l'Amérique méridionale) he includes some comments on which highlights pronunciation features, the use of the morpheme ya- prefixed to the parts of the body, the numbering system or the absence of gender markings on adjectives, as well as a list of words that compares with those of other languages of South America.

Studies of Gününa yajüch

In 1864, Hunziker recorded a vocabulary and a collection of phrases from a language called Genakenn in the Viedma region.