Kunza language

Kunza is a mostly extinct and revitalizing language isolate spoken in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru by the Atacama people, who have since shifted to Spanish. The last speaker was documented in 1964; however, it has since been learned that the language is still spoken in the desert.
Other names and spellings include Cunza, Ckunsa, Likanantaí, Lipe, Ulipe, and Atacameño. The word Ckunsa means 'our' in Kunza.
From what data is available, it is believed that it was a polysynthetic language. However, there is not sufficient information to determine which languages it was related to, if any. Thus, it is conventionally classified as a language isolate.

History

The language was spoken in northern Chile, specifically in the Chilean villages of Peine, Socaire, and Caspana, and in southern Peru.
The last Kunza speaker was found in 1949, although there are reports of some having been found in 1953 according to anthropologists. Loukotka reports a few speakers in Bolivia and in the village of Peine in Chile. There are 2,000 Atacameños as of 2004.
A revitalization effort was initiated in the 21st century.

Classification

Kaufman found a proposed connection between Kunza and the likewise unclassified Kapixaná to be plausible; however, the language was more fully described in 2004, and the general consensus among linguists was that both languages are isolates.
Unattested varieties listed by Loukotka :

Atacameño of Bolivia – spoken in a small village on the frontier of Potosí Department, Bolivia, and Antofagasta Province of Chile
Lipe – extinct language once spoken south of the Salar de Uyuni, Potosí Department, Bolivia
Language contact

Jolkesky notes that there are lexical similarities with the Mochika, Kandoshi, Jaqi, Kechua, Mapudungun, and Uru-Chipaya language families due to contact.

Phonology

Consonants

The vocabulary of Kunza is well-documented, but the phonetic realizations of lexical transcriptions are not so certain due to the widely differing systems of transcription that were used. Because of this, the accepted phonologic system for Kunza is tentative, and potentially even speculation. Even so, it is well known that the stops and affricates were distinguished between plain and glottalized.
is only present in loanwords. and are not directly attested, but are presumed to have been present based on data collected in 1981. Velar and uvular sounds are not consistently distinguished in the data.

Vowels

The use of doubled vowels in transcriptions suggest the existence of a contrast of length. Very few words begin with a vowel, almost all of them being non-lexical grammatical words. The only vowels possible in initial position are.

	Front	Central	Back
Close
Mid
Open

Grammar

Pronouns

According to the work of Vaïsse, Peyró, Schuhmacher and Adelaar, the following schema can be proposed:

Personal pronouns

Note that ikot corresponds to the relative i with the plural marker -kot. The forms with the added absolutive case suffix would be: aqʼa, kuna, čʼema, čime, ia, ikota.

Possessive pronouns

Note that the possessive marker is the suffix -sa, which is added directly to the roots of the personal pronouns.
San Román proposed a different way of marking possession, by means of prefixes added to the possessed object. The phonetic realizations are only hypothetical:

	Singular	Plural
1st person	qʼ	kun
2nd person	sʼ	čim
3rd person	ai	qʼ

According to this system, the possessive is marked in a way demonstrated in the following table, using the words tikʼan and lokma as examples. Note that the final suffix -ia is a copula.
San Román also proposed a system of conjugation that is exemplified with the verb yokontur in the following table:

	Singular	Plural
1st person	qʼ yokona	kun yokona
2nd person	se yokona	čim yokona
3rd person	yokona	etʼ yokona

Sample text

In 1867, Johann Jakob von Tschudi collected two versions of the prayer Our Father in Kunza.

Version 1
tican cunsa hirico is astansi i cotas cielos.
santi hijia chea vaclo.
cum cachia chema reino lepalo.
as voluntas acquis en la oiri penii cachi li cielo.
hi tancta cumsa he capin vasina canalo aun capin.
i cum perdonácalo cun manuya acquis pen cuna perdonama cun deudorctpas.
i cum deja chacalo cum colac cutia y tentacioniyas.
hichucul cumas librácolo hiri malipanta.
i kis yaclo.

Version 2
Tican tansi cielo stansi santificado chema izcu charcer
chema halu acs koytans levaldise. Señor voluntad tansiacs
koytansi cielo sacuma ctanta acsa viñayapun acsancalo
anjapin acperdona acs deuma chancosinys acperdona acsec-
tunas andejachaculo colcoma en tentación aca librame Señor
hualchas unic. Amen.