Ayoreo is a Zamucoan language spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia. It is also known as Morotoco, Moro, Ayoweo, Ayoré, and Pyeta Yovai. However, the name "Ayoreo" is more common in Bolivia, and "Morotoco" in Paraguay. It is spoken by the Ayoreo people, an indigenous ethnic group traditionally living on a combined hunter-gatherer and farming lifestyle.
Classification Ayoreo is classified as a Zamucoan language, along with Chamacoco.
Geographic distribution Ayoreo is spoken in both Paraguay and Bolivia, with 3,100 speakers total, 1,700 of whom live in Paraguay and 1,400 in Bolivia. Within Paraguay, Ayoreo is spoken in the Chaco Department and the northern parts of the Alto Paraguay Department. In Bolivia, it is spoken in the Cordillera Province, in the Santa Cruz Department.
Phonology Bertinetto (2009) reports that Ayoreo has the 5 vowels , which appear both as oral and nasal. +ConsonantsBilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalPlosivevoicelessprenasalAffricateFricativeNasalvoicelessvoicedApproximant
can also be heard as .
Grammar The prototypical constituent order is subject-verb-object, as seen in the following examples:
Ayoreo is a fusional language.
Verbs agree with their subjects, but there is no tense-inflection. Consider the following paradigm, which has prefixes marking person and suffixes marking number:
I plant you plant he, she, they plant we plant you (pl) plant
When the verb root contains a nasal, there are nasalized variants of the agreement affixes:
I spread you spread he, she, they spread we spread you (pl) spread
Ayoreo is a mood-prominent language. Nouns can be divided into possessable and non-possessable; possessor agreement is expressed through a prefixation. The syntax of Ayoreo is characterized by the presence of para-hypotactical structures.
Notes
References
External links
The page provides colored linguistic maps (habitat, other language families). Sorosoro Project Lenguas de Bolivia (online edition) ELAR archive of Documentation and Description of Paraguayan Ayoreo, a Language of the Chaco Ayoreo (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)