Native to Chile Extinct 1875 ISO 639-3 None (mis) | Ethnicity Chono people Language family unclassified | |
Region Chonos Archipelago, Chiloé Archipelago | ||
Chono is a poorly attested extinct language of confusing classification. It is attested primarily from an 18th-century catechism, which is not translated into Spanish.
Classification
Grondona & Campbell (2012) conclude that the language called Chono or Wayteka or Wurk-wur-we by Llaras Samitier (1967) is spurious, with the source material being a list of mixed and perhaps invented vocabulary.
Viegas Barros, who postulates a relationship between Kawesqar and Yaghan, believes that 45% of the Chono vocabulary and grammatical forms correspond to one of those languages, though it is not close to either.
Glottolog concludes that "There are lexical parallels with Mapuche as well as Qawesqar, ... but the core is clearly unrelated." They characterize Chono as a "language isolate", which corresponds to an unclassified language in other classifications.