Corpus of Historical Mapudungun

Apr 27, 2016
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The Corpus of Historical Mapudungun is a digital, linguistically-tagged collection of many of the earliest writings in the Mapudungun language, spanning materials from 1606 to 1930. Also known as Mapuche, Mapudungun (ARN) is the ancestral tongue of the Mapuche people and is spoken today (to varying degrees) by an estimated 250,000 people in Chile and Argentina. To date, no clear family affiliation has been proposed for Mapudungun, so it is often treated as a language isolate.

The first stage of the CHM (Version 1.0) is the outcome of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship awarded to Benjamin Molineaux at the University of Edinburgh’s Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics, which ran from April 2018 to March 2021. The search capabilities of the corpus have all been developed by Vasilis Karaiskos.

Mapudungun Historical Linguistics Corpora Grapho-phonology Native American Languages
Benjamín Molineaux
Benjamín Molineaux
Lecturer in Linguistics

I am a historical linguist, working on sounds, spellings, word structure and stress in Mapudungun and Older Scots.

Publications

El 𝘥𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘶𝘯 (diálogo) y el 𝘤𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘶𝘯 (parlamento) en el 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘦 de Andrés Febrés (1756): un legado para el mapudungun [The 𝘥𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘶𝘯 (dialogue) and the 𝘤𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘶𝘯 (discourse) in Andrés Febrés' 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘦: a legacy for Mapdudungun]
A shared reading of the illustrative texts in Febrés (1765) as a contribution to contemporary Mapudungun.
Benjamín Molineaux, Fresia Loncon
PDF Project Source Document
El 𝘥𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘶𝘯 (diálogo) y el 𝘤𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘶𝘯 (parlamento) en el 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘦 de Andrés Febrés (1756): un legado para el mapudungun [The 𝘥𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘶𝘯 (dialogue) and the 𝘤𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘶𝘯 (discourse) in Andrés Febrés' 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘦: a legacy for Mapdudungun]
Affective coronal alternations in Mapudungun: Sound symbolism, change and morpho-phonological structure
The paper examines a series of coronal consonantal alternations in Mapudungun. Palatalisations imply small size, tenderness, closeness and politeness (e.g.[naʐki] ‘cat'→[ɲaʃki] ‘kitty’), and dentalisation imply distance, abruptness, sarcasm and rudeness (e.g.[naʐki] ‘cat'→[naθki] ‘damned cat’). Both structural and sound-symbolic implications of the alternations are examined.
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project
A reassessment of word prominence in Mapudungun: Phonological vs. morphological activation
An account of Mapudungun stress assignment which highlight’s the role of stress-based morphological demarcation in the language’s complex word structure
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document
A reassessment of word prominence in Mapudungun: Phonological vs. morphological activation
The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: Loss, preservation and extension
The historical roots of the dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun are surveyed, alongside the tendency for their merger under asymmetric contact conditions.
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document
The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: Loss, preservation and extension
El *Sermón en Lengua de Chile* en el Corpus Histórico del Mapudungun: De texto colonial a texto digital [The *Sermon in the language of Chile* in the Corpus of Historical Mapudungun: from colonial text to digital text]
Transcription, tagging and mining possibilities for Luys de Valdivia’s (1606) Sermon in the language of Chile in the Corpus of Historical Mapudungun.
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document
El *Sermón en Lengua de Chile* en el Corpus Histórico del Mapudungun: De texto colonial a texto digital [The *Sermon in the language of Chile* in the Corpus of Historical Mapudungun: from colonial text to digital text]
Kuyfike awkiñ dungu / The echo of ancient voices: texts form Mapuche spoken tradition compiled in the late 19th century
In Spanish: Ecos de voces antiguas: Textos de la tradición oral mapuche recopilados a fines del siglo XIX
Belén Villena, Elisa Loncon, Benjamín Molineaux
Project Source Document
Kuyfike awkiñ dungu / The echo of ancient voices: texts form Mapuche spoken tradition compiled in the late 19th century
Pertinacity and change in Mapudungun stress assignment
Mapudungun stress and its interaction with morphological structure, as reconstructed for the 400-year record of the language
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document
The diachrony of Mapudungun stress assignment
The use of non-native speaker intuitions is proposed as a valid means for assessing the position of stress in Mapudungun.
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document
Native and Non-native Perception of Stress in Mapudungun: Assessing Structural Maintenance in the Phonology of an Endangered Language
The use of non-native speaker intuitions is proposed as a valid means for assessing the position of stress in Mapudungun.
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document
The validity of Augusta’s *Diccionario Araucano* one hundred years after its publication
In Spanish: Vigencia del Diccionario Araucano de Félix de Augusta, a cien años de su publicación
Benjamín Molineaux
PDF Project Source Document

Events

The Corpus of Historical Mapudungun: Digital Tools for New-World Language Change
Jul 9, 2019 12:00 AM The University of Utrecht
PDF Project Slides
Towards a Corpus of Historical Mapudungun
Minority, non-European languages – such as indigenous American ones – are critically underrepresented in the literature on language change. This not only narrows our view of the historical interaction of peoples and languages predating European expansion, but also limits our understanding of linguistic change as a whole.
Nov 30, 2018 12:00 AM The University of Edinburgh
Project
The phonology and morphology of stress assignment systems– evidence from English and Mapudungun
Presentation on the relationship between morphological and prosodic structure in Mapudungun vs. English
Oct 16, 2017 4:00 PM The University of Oxford
PDF Project
The phonology and morphology of stress assignment systems– evidence from English and Mapudungun