Kunza

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kunza
Cunza
Period until the beginning of the 20th century

Formerly spoken in

Northern Chile
speaker Lickan Antai (Atacameños)
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

short

ISO 639-3

short

Kunza is the original language of the Lickan Antai , an indigenous group of people in the Andean oases of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile . It is practically a dead language that currently only occurs in specific ritual chants and toponyms .

History

The Licancabur volcano , the " mountain of the people " from the Kunza Lickan'kaur (lickan = people, kaur = mountain), is a holy mountain of the Lickan Antai, according to which roads are traditionally oriented, as here in San Pedro de Atacama .

Around the middle of the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors invaded the region around San Pedro de Atacama . Hispanicization of the indigenous people there began in the 17th century , a process that grew stronger over time. In 1776 the use of Kunza was banned and the use of Spanish became compulsory in schools and homesteads. Harsh pecuniary and corporal penalties were imposed to enforce it. At the same time, those who learned Spanish were rewarded with benefits by the colonial rulers. As a result, not only was the language eliminated, but it also influenced the customs of the Lickan Antai and led to a Christian-Andean syncretism . In the middle of the 20th century, the researcher Grete Mostny found that the majority of the Lickan Antai in San Pedro de Atacama spoke only Spanish , but with a foreign accent . Many of them still had extensive vocabulary, but no one spoke Kunza fluently. The old language was mixed with Spanish until the use of hybrid words composed of both languages.

Lexicons

  • Claudio Pérez, Julio Vilte Vilte: Kunza. Diccionario kunza-español / español-kunza, lengua del pueblo lickan antai o atacameño. Codelco Chile, 2004. ISBN 956-8072-03-9 ( online )
  • Emilio F. Vaisse, et al .: Glosario de la lengua atacameña. Anales de la Universidad de Chile. 1895. ( online )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Claudio Pérez, Julio Vilte Vilte: Kunza Diccionario kunza-español / español-kunza, lengua del pueblo lickan antai o atacameño. Codelco Chile, 2004. ISBN 956-8072-03-9 ( online )
  2. ^ Biblioteca Nacional de Chile. “Cunza” , in: Licán Antai. Memoria Chilena.
  3. ↑ Mostny, G. et al .: Peine, un pueblo atacameño. In: Publicación N ° 4 del Instituto de Geografía de la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad de Chile 1954. pp. 1–113. ( PDF )