Araucanian languages
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Araucanian (also Mapudungu) is an indigenous language family of central Chile and west central Argentina in South America.
Two Araucanian languages are still spoken. The most widely spoken is Mapudungun (also Araucano, Mapuche), the language of the Mapuche people. There are an estimated 240,000 active users of the language, 200,000 in Chile and 40,000 in Argentina.
Huillice (also Huilliche, Veliche) has several thousand speakers, most of whom speak Spanish as a first language, south of the Mapuche in Chile's Valdivian Coastal Range and on Chiloé Island.
Campbell (1997) treats these as dialects of the same language.
Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).