Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay

Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay
Wiznay
Native to	Argentina
Ethnicity	Wichí
Native speakers	26,500 (2021)
Language family	Matacoan Wichi language Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mzh
Glottolog	wich1264
ELP	Wichí (shared)

Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay or Wiznay is a Wichí language. Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay had an estimated 15,000 speakers in 1999 in Argentina. The language is centered in the Pilcomayo River region. Other names for the language include Güisnay, Mataco, Mataco Güisnay, Mataco Pilcomayo, and Wichí Lhamtés. A grammar book has been written for the language.

The Wichí languages are predominantly suffixing and polysynthetic; verbal words have between 2 and 15 morphemes. Alienable and inalienable possession is distinguished. The phonological inventory is large, with simple, glottalized and aspirated stops and sonorants. The number of vowels varies with the language (five or six).

Phonology

Consonants in the Misión La Paz Wichí dialect

		Labial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar			Glottal
			central	sibilant	lateral		plain	labial	pal.	plain	labial
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts			k	kʷ	kʲ	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ			kʼ		kʲʼ
Fricative				s						h	hʷ
Nasal		m	n
Lateral	voiced				l
	voiceless				l̥
Approximant						j		w

• Aspirated sounds [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ~qʰ] only occur as allophones of /p, t, k/.
• /k, kʷ, kʼ/ can also have allophones of [q, qʷ, qʼ].
• /m, n/ can have allophones [m̥, n̥, n̥ʲ] word-medially, when occurring after /h/. [n̥ʲ] occurs when /i/ is preceding the sequence /nh/.
• /h/ can also be heard as [x] word-medially and word-finally.

Vowels in the Misión La Paz Wichí dialect

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a	(ɑ)

• /a/ can have an allophone of [ɑ].

See also

• Wichí Lhamtés Nocten
• Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz