Enxet | |
---|---|
Southern Lengua | |
Énxet nempeywa | |
Pronunciation | [eːnɬet] |
Native to | Paraguay |
Region | Presidente Hayes |
Ethnicity | 5,840 Enxet Sur people (2002 census) [1] |
Native speakers | 3,800 (2002 census) [2] |
Mascoian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
enx |
Glottolog |
sout2989 |
ELP | Enxet Sur |
Enxet, also known as Enxet Sur or Southern Lengua, is a language spoken by the Indigenous southern Enxet people of Presidente Hayes Department, Paraguay. It is one of twenty languages spoken by the wider Gran Chaco Amerindians of South America. [3] Once considered a dialect of a broader language, known as Vowak or Powok, Enxet (Southern Lengua) and Enlhet (Northern Lengua) diverged as extensive differences between the two were realized. [4]
Enxet belongs to the Enlhet-Enenlhet (aka Mascoian) language family, a small family of languages spoken in the Paraguayan region of the South American Gran Chaco. [4] Enxet is most closely related to its sister language Enlhet, based on some preliminary analysis, but a substantial historical analysis of the Enlhet-Enenlhet family has not yet been published.
Enxet and Enlhet were once considered dialects of a single language known as Lengua. [4] The Enxet language was first documented in the late nineteenth century by explorers from Spain. [5]
Enxet contains only three phonemic vowel qualities /e,a,o/, each requiring a certain length such to maximize distinction. Bilingual speakers of Spanish and Enxet purportedly utilize shorter spacing between vowels when speaking Enxet compared to Spanish. [6]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Mid | e eː | o oː | |
Open | a aː |
Phoneme | Allophone |
---|---|
/e/ | [e], [i], [ɛ] |
/o/ | [o], [ʊ], [ɔ] |
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | p | t | cʲ | k | q | ʔ | |
Affricate | tʃ | ||||||
Fricative | s | h | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
Lateral | approximant | l | |||||
fricative | ɬ | ||||||
Semivowel | j | w |
/cʲ/ can also be heard as a regular palatal stop [c] or a palatalized velar stop [kʲ] in free variation. [7]
Enxet | |
---|---|
Southern Lengua | |
Énxet nempeywa | |
Pronunciation | [eːnɬet] |
Native to | Paraguay |
Region | Presidente Hayes |
Ethnicity | 5,840 Enxet Sur people (2002 census) [1] |
Native speakers | 3,800 (2002 census) [2] |
Mascoian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
enx |
Glottolog |
sout2989 |
ELP | Enxet Sur |
Enxet, also known as Enxet Sur or Southern Lengua, is a language spoken by the Indigenous southern Enxet people of Presidente Hayes Department, Paraguay. It is one of twenty languages spoken by the wider Gran Chaco Amerindians of South America. [3] Once considered a dialect of a broader language, known as Vowak or Powok, Enxet (Southern Lengua) and Enlhet (Northern Lengua) diverged as extensive differences between the two were realized. [4]
Enxet belongs to the Enlhet-Enenlhet (aka Mascoian) language family, a small family of languages spoken in the Paraguayan region of the South American Gran Chaco. [4] Enxet is most closely related to its sister language Enlhet, based on some preliminary analysis, but a substantial historical analysis of the Enlhet-Enenlhet family has not yet been published.
Enxet and Enlhet were once considered dialects of a single language known as Lengua. [4] The Enxet language was first documented in the late nineteenth century by explorers from Spain. [5]
Enxet contains only three phonemic vowel qualities /e,a,o/, each requiring a certain length such to maximize distinction. Bilingual speakers of Spanish and Enxet purportedly utilize shorter spacing between vowels when speaking Enxet compared to Spanish. [6]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Mid | e eː | o oː | |
Open | a aː |
Phoneme | Allophone |
---|---|
/e/ | [e], [i], [ɛ] |
/o/ | [o], [ʊ], [ɔ] |
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | p | t | cʲ | k | q | ʔ | |
Affricate | tʃ | ||||||
Fricative | s | h | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
Lateral | approximant | l | |||||
fricative | ɬ | ||||||
Semivowel | j | w |
/cʲ/ can also be heard as a regular palatal stop [c] or a palatalized velar stop [kʲ] in free variation. [7]