Chipaya is a native South American language of the Uru–Chipaya language family. The only other language in the grouping, Uru

Uru language

The Uru language, also known as Iru-Itu , Morato, or Muratu, is the language of the Uros, an Amerindian people. In the year 2000 it had 2 remaining native speakers out of an ethnic group of 100 to 150 people in the La Paz Department, Ingavi Province, near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, the rest having...

, is considered by some to be a divergent dialect of Chipaya. Ethnologue

Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

 lists the language vitality as "vigorous," with 1200 speakers out of an ethnic population of around 1800. Chipaya has been influenced considerably by Aymara

Aymara language

Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...

, Quechua

Quechua languages

Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...

, and more recently, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, with a third of its vocabulary being replaced by those languages.

The Chipayan language is spoken in the area south of Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca is a lake located on the border of Peru and Bolivia. It sits 3,811 m above sea level, making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world...

 along the Desaguadero River

Desaguadero River (Bolivia)

The Desaguadero River in Peru and Bolivia is the river that drains Lake Titicaca. It exits the lake at the southern part of the river basin, it flows south and drains approximately five percent of the lake's flood waters into Lake Uru Uru and Lake Poopó....

 in the mountains of Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

 and mainly in the town of Santa Ana de Chipaya located in the Atahuallpa Province

Atahuallpa Province

Atahuallpa is a province in the central parts of the Bolivian department of Oruro.-Location:Atahuallpa province is one of sixteen provinces in the Oruro Department...

 of the Bolivian department of Oruro

Oruro Department

Oruro is a department in Bolivia, with an area of 53,588 km². Its capital is the city of Oruro. At the time of census 2001 it had a population of 391,870.- Provinces of Oruro :...

 north of Coipasa Salt Flats

Lago Coipasa

Lago Coipasa or Salar de coipasa is a lake in Atahuallpa Province, Oruro Department, Bolivia. At an elevation of 3657 m, its surface area is 806 km²...

. Native speakers generally refer to it as Puquina or Uchun Maa Taqu ("our mother language"), but is not the same as the extinct Puquina language

Puquina language

Puquina is an extinct language once spoken by the ancient Inca in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca and in the north of what is now Chile....

. Uru–Chipaya (as the language is commonly referred to, at least when referencing an aspect the dialects/languages have in common) is an agglutinating language, but has features uncommon to most language of this type, according to preliminary research by the organization DOBES.

Consonants

		Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Post- alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....		Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
						plain	labialized Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	plain	labialized Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...		m  /m/	n  /n/	ň  /ɲ/		ŋ  /ŋ/
Plosive	plain	p  /p/	t  /t/		č  /c/	k  /k/	/kʷ/	q  /q/
	ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...	p'  /pʼ/	t'  /tʼ/		č'  /cʼ/	k'  /kʼ/		q'  /qʼ/
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...	plain		¢  /ts/	ch  /tʃ/
	ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...		¢'  /tsʼ/	ch'  /tʃʼ/
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...			s  /s/	sh  /ʃ/	š  /ç/	h  /x/	/xʷ/	x  /χ/	/χʷ/
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...			l  /l/	/lʲ/	y  /j/		w  /w/

Consonant Clusters

Multiple possibilities are separated by slashes, and optional elements are enclosed in parentheses.

Possible syllable onsets are:

• (s/š) + p + (h)
• (s/š/sh) + k/q + (h/hʷ/x/xʷ)
• s/š + p/k/kʷ/q/qʷ/h/hʷ/m/n
• t + h/hʷ/x/xʷ
• ¢/č/ch/l + h

Possible syllable codas are:

• h/x + p/t/k/q/l/lʲ/r + (t)
• hʷ/xʷ + k/q + (t)
• Consonant + t

Vowels

• Vowels have continental values for a, [a], e [e], i [i], o, [o], and u [u]. Each vowel can be short, e.g., a [a], or long, e.g., a• [aː].

External links

• Entry for Chipaya at Rosetta Project
• DoBeS - Chipaya Language