Mapudungun love poem
Espeko
Wvjvfwe mew mvley ta mi am che
Feyta ñi rume kvme vl feyvrke
Welu matukele, zew gewelayay
Tvfa ta ñi af poyeyu. Pipigean
Director en Curso de Mapuzugun
→ French poem ←
Mapuche language
Mapudungun (the alternatives : Ngoluche, Mapuzungun, Maputongo, Araucana, Mapudungu, Pehuenche, Picunche, Mapuche, Moluche, Araucano, Ranquel, mapuchedungun, Huilliche, Manzanero) in alphabet raguileo ... It's a translation!
Mapuche, "the language of the land" is spoken by the Mapuche Indians (Araucans) in Chile and Argentina. They will be 500,000 to understand this mapudungun poem.
There are just little differences between the Mapuche dialects (mapudungun (central southern Chile), Pehuenche (eastern Chile)). Ranquel (Argentina), Picunche and Huilliche (Chile) are extinct.
To link Mapuche to other languages is actually unsuccessful. Whether it is, with Qawaskar and Yaghan, or with Arawak, Carib and Maya, no affiliation could be demonstrated.
If the first grammar dates from the beginning of 1600, the writings really began only at the beginning of 1900, and will really expand only in the last thirty years.
The Mapuches
The Mapuches, originally would come from the current Chilean territory. They would be the result of moving groups, in contact and exchanging with those further north, to be already well recognizable in the 7th century.
They occupy the territories, located between the Bio-Bio River and the Tolten River, in the south of Temuco, belonging to the cultural area of the Araucan group.
The Mapuche society, organized according to a strict territorial division, was endowed with a highly hierarchical political structure. The highest authority, the elders council, exercised on the villages composed of one to eight collective houses.
The Mapuches lived with agriculture on burning, picking and raising llamas. Today they are mostly acculturated.
Chile the narrow strip of land between the Pacific and the Andes Cordillera which runs from the burning desert of Atacama to the ice of Tierra del Fuego offers a wide variety of landscapes and climates.
Its inhabitants are the mixed descendants of indigenous Indians and Spanish settlers. In the center of the Andes are the Mapuche, which represents 4% of the Chilean population.