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Cholón language

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Cholón
Seeptsá
Native toPeru
RegionHuallaga River valley
Native speakers
Only one native speaker (2021)
Hibito–Cholon ?
  • Cholón
Language codes
ISO 639-3cht
Glottologchol1284
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Cholón (Spanish: lengua cholona), also known as Seeptsá and Tsinganeses, is a language of Peru. It was spoken near Uchiza,[1][2] from Tingo María to Valle in the Huallaga River valley of Huanuco and San Martín regions.[3]

The language was previously thought to be extinct but a native speaker was discovered in 2021. Martha Pérez Valderrama is believed to be the last remaining speaker of Cholón.[4]

Phonology

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Due to the amateur Spanish pronunciation spellings used to transcribe Cholon, its sound inventory is uncertain. The following is an attempt at interpreting them (Adelaar 2004:464).

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive p t k ʔ
Affricate ts
Fricative s ʃ h
Approximant w l ʎ, j

The vowels appeared to have been similar to Spanish [a e~ɪ i o~ʊ u].

Grammar

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Cholon distinguishes masculine and feminine grammatical gender in the second person. That is, one used different forms for "you" depending on whether one was speaking to a man or a woman:

katsok 'house'
aktsok 'my house'
miktsok 'your house' (speaking to a man)
piktsok 'your house' (speaking to a woman)
intʃamma 'what did you say?' (speaking to a man)
intʃampa 'what did you say?' (speaking to a woman)

References

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  1. ^ Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
  2. ^ "Cholon | The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America". ailla.utexas.org. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
  3. ^ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Peru languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  4. ^ "Pérez Valderrama, Martha | The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America". ailla.utexas.org. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
  • Adelaar, Willem (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
  • Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: Cholón