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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. Extinct Guarañoca may have been a dialect.

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 /a, e, i, o, u/, which appear both as oral and nasal.

/j/ can also be heard as [dʒ].

Grammar

The prototypical constituent order is subject-verb-object, as seen in the following examples:

Sérgio

Sérgio

ch-ingo

3-show

caratai

jaguar

aroi

skin

tome

to

Ramon.

Ramon

Sérgio ch-ingo caratai aroi tome Ramon.

Sérgio 3-show jaguar skin to Ramon

‘Sérgio showed the jaguar’s skin to Ramon’.

Enga

COORD

ore

3P

ch-ijnoque

3-carry

Víctor

Víctor

aja

towards

señóra

señora

Emília

Emília

i-guijnai.

house

Enga ore ch-ijnoque Víctor aja señóra Emília i-guijnai.

COORD 3P 3-carry Víctor towards señora Emília house

‘And they carried Víctor to Señora Emília’s house’.

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:

When the verb root contains a nasal, there are nasalized variants of the agreement affixes:

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

1. Ayoreo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Bertinetto 2009, p. 8.
3. Bertinetto 2009, p. 10.
4. Bertinetto 2009, p. 9.
5. Bertinetto 2009, pp. 45–46.
6. ^ Bertinetto 2009
7. Ciucci 2007–2008.
8. Bertinetto 2009, p. 29.
9. Ciucci 2010.
10. Bertinetto & Ciucci 2012.

References

• Bertinetto, Pier Marco (2009). "Ayoreo (Zamuco). A grammatical sketch" (PDF). Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 8.
• Bertinetto, Pier Marco; Ciucci, Luca (2012). "Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Para-Hypotaxis in the Zamucoan Languages". Linguistic Discovery. 10 (1): 89–111. doi:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.404. S2CID 14026911.
• Briggs, Janet R. (1972). Quiero contarles unos casos del Beni. Cochabamba: Summer Institute of Linguistics in collaboration with the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Dirección Nacional de Antropología.
• Briggs, Janet R. (1973). "Ayoré narrative analysis". International Journal of American Linguistics. 39 (3): 155–163. doi:10.1086/465259.
• Ciucci, Luca (2007–2008). "Indagini sulla morfologia verbale dell'ayoreo" (PDF). Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale (in Italian). 7.
• Ciucci, Luca (2010). "La flessione possessiva dell'ayoreo" (PDF). Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (in Italian). 9 (2).
• Higham, Alice; Morarie, Maxine; Paul, Greta (2000). Ayoré-English dictionary. Vol. 1–3. Sanford, FL: New Tribes Mission.
• Sušnik, Branislava J. (1963). "La lengua de los Ayoweos - Moros". Boletín de la Sociedad Científica del Paraguay y del Museo Etnográfico. Etnolingüística. 8. Asunción: 1–148.
• Sušnik, Branislava J. (1973). La lengua de los Ayoweo-Moros. Estructura gramatical y fraseario etnográfico (in Spanish). Asunción: Museo Etnográfico “Andrés Barbero”.

External links

• Ayoreo man recounts first encounter with bulldozer (streamed video). Survival International. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
• "Lengua ayoéro" (in Spanish). Promotora Española de Linguistica (PROEL). The page provides colored linguistic maps (habitat, other language families).
• Sorosoro Project
• Lenguas de Bolivia Archived 2019-09-04 at the Wayback Machine (online edition)
• ELAR archive of Documentation and Description of Paraguayan Ayoreo, a Language of the Chaco
• Ayoreo (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)

v t e Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos
List
World Heritage Sites	San Xavier San Rafael de Velasco San José de Chiquitos Concepción San Miguel de Velasco Santa Ana de Velasco
Other sites	San Ignacio de Velasco Santiago de Chiquitos San Juan Bautista Santo Corazón San Ignacio de Zamucos
Cathedrals	Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Concepción St. Ignatius Cathedral, San Ignacio de Velasco
Peoples	Chiquitano Ayoreo
Languages	Chiquitano Migueleño Chiquitano Gorgotoqui Otuke Ayoreo Mamoré–Guaporé linguistic area
Geography	Chiquitania

• Languages of Bolivia
• Languages of Paraguay
• Indigenous languages of the South American Chaco
• Zamucoan languages
• Subject–verb–object languages
• Chaco linguistic area