Ona language
Chonan language spoken by the Selk'nam people / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ona, also known as Selk'nam (Shelknam), is a language spoken by the Selk'nam people in Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego in southernmost South America.
Ona | |
---|---|
Selk'nam | |
Native to | Argentina, Chile |
Region | Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego. |
Ethnicity | Selk'nam |
Extinct | 1970s[1] |
Revival | currently being revitalised by the modern community. 1 fluent L2 speaker. |
Chonan †
| |
Latin script | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ona |
Glottolog | onaa1245 |
ELP | Ona |
Part of the Chonan languages of Patagonia, Selk'nam is almost extinct, due to the late 19th-century Selk'nam genocide by European immigrants, high fatalities due to disease, and disruption of traditional society. One source states that the last fluent native speakers died in the 1980s.[2] A Radboud University linguist worked with two individuals to write a reference grammar of the language, namely, Herminia Vera-Ona (deceased since 2014), a semi-speaker who spoke Ona until the age of 8, and Joubert "Keyuk" Yanten, a young man who started learning the language after learning he was part-Selk'nam at the age of 8.[3] At the time the grammar was written, the latter was believed to be the only living individual fluent in Selk'nam, albeit not natively.