Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz
Encyclopedia
Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz is a Mataco-Guaicuru, Wichí language spoken by 25,000 people in Argentina. Speakers are located in the northern states of Formosa, Salta, Jujuy and Chaco.
The Wichí languages are predominantly suffix
ing 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 stop
s and sonorant
s. The number of vowel
s varies with the language (five or six).
The Wichí languages are predominantly suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
ing and polysynthetic
Polysynthetic language
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes. Whereas isolating languages have a low morpheme-to-word ratio, polysynthetic languages have extremely high morpheme-to-word ratios.Not all languages can be...
; verbal words have between 2 and 15 morphemes. Alienable and inalienable possession
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
is distinguished. The phonological inventory is large, with simple, glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
and aspirated stop
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s and sonorant
Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
s. The number of vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s varies with the language (five or six).