Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz

Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz is a Mataco-Guaicuru language of Argentina and Bolivia. Speakers are concentrated in northern parts of Chaco, Formosa, Salta, Jujuy Provinces, as well as west of Toba, the upper Bermejo River valley, and Pilcomayo River. The language is also called Mataco Vejoz and Vejos.

Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz
Native to	Argentina, Bolivia
Ethnicity	Wichí
Native speakers	31,500 (2021)
Language family	Matacoan Wichi languages Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wlv
Glottolog	wich1263
ELP	Wichí (shared)

The Wichí languages are predominantly suffixing and polysynthetic; verbal words have between 2 and 15 morphemes. Alienable and inalienable possession is distinguished. The phonological inventory is large, with simple, glottalized and aspirated stops and sonorants. The number of vowels varies with the language (five or six).

Phonology

Consonants in the Chaqueña Wichí dialect

		Labial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
			central	sibilant	lateral
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts		tʃ	kʷ	q	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	tsʰ				qʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ		tʃʼ		qʼ
Fricative		fʷ		s	ɬ			χ	h
Sonorant	voiced	m	n		l	j	w
	voiceless		n̥			j̥	w̥
	preglottal	ʼm	ʼn		ʼl	ʼj	ʼw

Vowels in the Chaqueña Wichí dialect

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

• /i/ is heard as [ɪ] after palatal consonants.
• /e/ is heard as [ɛ] when preceding uvular consonants.
• /a, o/ sounds can be heard as [ɑ, ɔ] before uvular consonants.
• /u/ can be heard as [ʊ] in syllable-final position.

See also

• Wichí Lhamtés Nocten
• Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay

External links

• Thathamet: Thatathyaj Thaye Thatenek (1926) Portions of the Book of Common Prayer and Paraphrases of Well-known English Hymns in the Mataco Language as Spoken by a Tribe of Indians Living in That Part of the Gran Chaco which is under the Rule of the Argentine Republic. Digitized by Richard Mammana
• Collections in the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America