Puelche was a language formerly spoken by the Puelche people in the Pampas region of Argentina. The language is also known as Gününa Küne, Gennaken (Guenaken), Northern Tehuelche, Gününa Yajich, Ranquelche, and Pampa.

Classification

Puelche has long been considered a language isolate. Based on very limited evidence, Viegas Barros (1992) suggests that Puelche might be closely related to the language of the Querandí, one of the Het peoples, and Viegas Barros (2005) that it is related to the Chon languages.^[2] Further afield, inclusion in a putative Macro-Jibaro family has been posited.

Documentation

In 1829, D'Orbigny toured the area of southern Buenos Aires and the mouth of the Río Negro. There he collected words of the “puelches”, “aucas” and “tehuelches” —that is, in günün a iajüch, mapuzungun and teushen, respectively—in the vicinity of Carmen de Patagones, in a permanent settlement of linguistically heterogeneous groups.

The French traveler, intrigued by the indigenous languages of the area, arrived at the tolderías and contacted some interpreters:

"In a tent of friendly Patagonians I found a woman named Lunareja who spoke enough Spanish as if to serve as an interpreter; belonged to the Puelche nation and was married to a Patagonian, so that I knew both languages equally, which was of the greatest use to me. I also knew Araucanian, but the notions of this language could be better transmitted to me by the Indians."

In L'Homme américain (de l'Amérique méridionale) he includes some comments on which highlights pronunciation features, the use of the morpheme ya- prefixed to the parts of the body, the numbering system or the absence of gender markings on adjectives, as well as a list of words that compares with those of

other languages of South America. ^[3][4]

Phonology

Vowels

Puelche has 7 vowels:^[5]

A short sounding /e/ is realized as [ɛ].

Consonants

Puelche has 25 consonants:^[5][6]

It is not clear if there is a uvular ejective stop [qʼ].

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Gennaken.^[7]

gloss	Gennaken
one	chéye
two	päch
ear	chütsk
tooth	xaye
hand	yapal
foot	yapgit
sun	apiúkük
moon	apioxok
dog	dáshü

Comparative Vocabulary

Below there is a list of comparative vocabulary between Chonan languages; Puelche, Teushen, Selk'nam, Tehuelche, and Haush, as well as Moseten languages; Chimane and Mosetén.^[7][8][4]