Yámana language
| Yahgan | |
|---|---|
| Yámana | |
| Háusi Kúta | |
| Native to | Chile |
| Region | Tierra del Fuego |
| Ethnicity | 1,700 Yaghan people (2002 census) |
|
Native speakers
|
1 (2013) Last speaker was 85 years old in 2013. |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | yama1264 |
Yagán (originally Yahgan, but also now spelled Yaghan, Jagan, Iakan), also known as Yámana and Háusi Kúta, is one of the indigenous languages of Tierra del Fuego, spoken by the Yagán people. It is regarded as a language isolate, although some linguists have attempted to relate it to Kawésqar and Chon.
Along with other Fuegian languages, it was among the first South American languages to be recorded by European explorers and missionaries. Yahgan was also spoken briefly on Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands at a missionary settlement.
Following the death of 84-year-old Emelinda Acuña (1921 – October 12, 2005), only one native speaker remains, Cristina Calderón of Villa Ukika on Navarino Island, Chile. Calderón (often referred to as simply Abuela) is the sister-in-law of Acuña.
There are three analyses of the phonological system of Yahgan, which differ in many details from one another. The oldest analysis is from the 19th century (prephonological era), by Thomas Bridges (1894); from the middle of the 20th century Haudricourt (1952) and Holmer (1953); and towards the end of the 20th century, the last phonological studies were made on this moribund language by Guerra Eissmann (1990), Salas y Valencia (1990), and Aguilera (2000).
The alphabet currently sanctioned officially in Chile is as follows: a, æ, ch, e, ö, f, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, rh, s, š, t, u, w, x.
An orthographically simplified variant of the old Bridges system was created for online use on the Waata Chis discussion list on Yahoo Groups and elsewhere. This alphabet consists of tense and lax vowels as well as voiced and voiceless consonants, among others. In this system tenseness is marked by colon : following the vowel sign. a, a:, ai, au, e, e:, i, i:, iu:, o, o:, oi, u, u:, v (here schwa, not /v/), all correspond to unique graphemes in the Bridges orthography. Consonants are: b, d, ch, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, sh, t, w, x, y, z, all corresponding to single Bridges graphemes, some of which are only found in restricted environments, and hm, hn, hl, hr, hw, hy, which are digraphs in earlier Bridges writings but single graphemes in later ones. Still later Bridges made further orthographic modifications: w, h, and y became superscripts- à is read as ya, á as ha, and ā as wa. Superscripts could combine to give hw, hy, etc. Because iu: could now be represented by u: plus y- superscript (ù:), and also because the original graphemes for u: and u were easily confused with each other (as well as with the now superscripted w), Bridges began using the now redundant grapheme for iu: (approximately ų) for u: in his renderings. All these changes took place in a very short time frame, and have led to a lot of confusion on the part of later scholars. In addition, Bridges' modifications of the 19th century phonetic alphabet of Alexander Ellis also included a number of signs meant for transliterations of foreign terms.
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