Lule language


[Image:Provincia de Chaco, Argentina.png|thumb|location of Chaco Province, Argentina]
Lule is an indigenous language of northern Argentina, which is now extinct. Campbell writes that in 1981 there was an unconfirmed report that Lule was still spoken by 5 families in Resistencia in east-central Chaco Province. It is unclear if it is the same language as Tonocoté.

Classification

Lule appears to be distantly related to the still-spoken Vilela language, together forming a small Lule–Vilela family. Kaufman finds this relationship likely and with general agreement among the major classifiers of South American languages. Viegas Barros published additional evidence 1996–2006. Zamponi and other authors consider Lule and Vilela two linguistic isolates.
There were three distinct groups known as Lulé:
  • The nomadic Lule of the plains, who in addition to their own language, spoke Tonocote, the local lingua franca and the language of Spanish catechism.
  • The sedentary Lule of the foothills, who were trilingual in Lule, Tonocote, and Quechua in addition to their original language, Cacán.
  • The Lule-Tonocote, whose language was recorded by Machoni.

Varieties

Varieties classified by Loukotka as part of the Lule language cluster are given below.
  • Tonocoté - once spoken on the Bermejo River near Concepción, Chaco.
  • Isistiné - once spoken on the Salado River near San Juan de Valbuena, Chaco.
  • Oristine - once spoken on the Salado River near San Juan de Valbuena, Chaco.
  • Toquistiné - once spoken on the Salado River near Miraflores.
  • Matará / Amulahí - once spoken near the city of the same name on the Salado River. May be related to Tonocoté.
  • Jurí - extinct language of an agricultural tribe that lived on the Hondo and Salado Rivers, province of Santiago del Estero. The last survivors now speak only a Quechua dialect.

Documentation

In 1586 Father Alonson Bárzana wrote a grammar of Tonocote, which is now lost. In 1732 Antonio Maccioni, who was not aware of Bárzana's grammar, wrote one of his own, Arte y vocabulario de la lengua lule y tonocoté of the Lule-Tonocote language at the mission San Esteban de Miraflores. This is now the primary data on the language. Métraux concluded that Lule and Tonocote were distinct, and perhaps unrelated, languages, and that the Tonocote at the Miraflores mission had shifted to the Lule language by the time of Machoni.

Phonology

Machoni records a language with vowels and few consonants. Final syllables are stressed. There are consonant clusters in initial and final position: quelpç 'I split', slimst 'I blow my nose', oalécst 'I know', stuç 'I throw'. Lule has no postalveolar affricate. In the orthography of Machoni, the symbols c, ç, and possibly also z are used to represent a sound tentatively identified as an alveolar affricate. However, c is used both for IPA and, evident from the imperative form of certain verbs, such as uec-y 'die!' from uec-ç 'I die' versus poqu-y 'dig!' from poc-ç 'I dig'. Machoni also adds that in certain words it is pronounced as Spanish ç or ss.
The simplicity of the Lule phoneme inventory is unusual compared to that of its relative Vilela, which has postvelar stops, as well as voicing and glottalization distinctions. Machoni may not have recorded such distinctions in his transcriptions. Glottalization in Lule is only suggested by the double consonants in ttá 'egg'. Voiceless laterals are evidenced in Machoni's accompanying vocabulary, such as quilhá 'Indian girl'; cf. Vilela kiɬe 'woman' and also possibly a voiceless nasal as seen in nhalá pulú 'sugarcane'. Glottal stops are suggested by seç ~ s.heç 'I support', in which s and e are pronounced separately, and seç 'I cry', where they are pronounced without separation.

Works

Editions of Arte, y vocabulario de la lengua lule, y tonocote:
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