Leco language

Leco, also written as Leko, is a language isolate that, though long reported to be extinct, is spoken by 20–40 individuals in areas east of Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. The Leco ethnic population was 13,527 in 2012.[5]

Not to be confused with Leko languages.

Leco
Leko, Rik’a
Native to	Bolivia
Region	La Paz Department (Bolivia): east of Lake Titicaca
Ethnicity	2,800 (2001)[1]
Native speakers	20 (2001)[1]
Language family	Language isolate (Puquina?[2] or Sechura–Catacao?[3])
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lec
Glottolog	leco1242[4]

Classification

Although Leco is generally considered to be a language isolate, Kaufman (1994: 64) groups Leco together with the Sechura–Catacao languages as part of a proposed Macro-Lecoan family.[3] It has, also, been, suggested that Leco might be grouped with the extinct Puquina languages spoken in the south shore of Lake Titicaca.[6][7]

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Kulle, Omurano, Taushiro, Urarina, Arawak, Cholon-Hibito, Jaqi, and Quechua language families due to contact.[8]

Background

History

Apart from some brief lists of vocabulary, the main document for which Leco is known is a Christian doctrine compiled by the missionary Andrés Herrero at the beginning of the 19th century. That doctrine was published in 1905 by Lafone Quevedo, who used it as a source to make a grammatical description of the language. That work was virtually the only available document about Leco, until the linguist Simon van de Kerke (1994) located some speakers of the language and compiled some additional facts which enlarged the analysis of Quevedo.

Use and description

In Grimes (1988), Leco is classified as a language isolate and is considered extinct. However, Montaño Aragón (1987) found some speakers of the language in the region of Atén and in Apolo, La Paz, in Franz Tamayo Province in the Bolivian department of La Paz, along Mapiri River in Larecaja Province (situated also in the department of La Paz).

Some speakers were relocated by van de Kerke (1994–97). These speakers, mostly men, were older than 50 years and had not habitually used the language since a long time before that. Van de Kerke relates that the speakers do not feel sufficiently secure to conduct a conversation spontaneously in Leco.

Linguistic description

Phonology

In regard to the phonology of Leco, one can point out the following (based on van de Kerke, 2009: 289–291).

Leco has six vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /è/. The opposition among the first five vowels is distinguished in the data, but the opposition between /e/ and /è/ is found only in a limited number of words, as for example pele 'balsa' and pèlè 'name of plant'.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
				plain	ejective
Stop	nasal	m	n				ŋ
	voiceless	p	t				k
	voiced	b	d
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ				kʼ
Affricate			t͡s	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃʼ
Fricative	voiceless		s					h
	voiced		z
Approximant			l			j	w
Flap			ɾ

Lexicon and classes of words

In regard to the lexicon and the classes of words in Leco, one can mention the following (van de Kerke, 2009: 293–297):

• In Leco, four major categories of words are distinguished: noun, adjective, verb, and adverb. Besides, the language has a group of minor categories: names of people, personal pronouns, deictic pronouns, numerals, interrogative pronouns, etc.
• Nouns are characterized morphosyntactically by constituting the nucleus of a noun phrase and by allowing inflection of number and case. Some nouns or substantives in Leco are won 'house' and phose 'daughter'.
• In regard to the pronouns, Leco distinguishes four types: personal pronouns, such as era 'I', iya 'you (singular)', kibi 'he/she'; demonstrative pronouns, such as hoo 'this, near the speaker', on 'that, new the addressee' and hino 'that, far from the speaker and the addressee'; interrogative pronouns, such as ha 'who', u 'what', nora 'where'; and indefinite pronouns, expressed by means of dubitative phrases, composed of an interrogative pronoun and the suffixes -as 'also' and -ka 'como'.
• Leco has a large number of adjectival lexemes, which are characterized by expressing qualities of entities. Thus we have, for example, lais 'bueno', suma 'small'.
• Leco has a decimal numeral system, composed of the following units: her 'one', too 'two', chai 'three', dirai 'four', bercha 'five', berphahmo 'six', toiphahmo 'seven', ch'aiphahmo 'eight', beepila 'nine', and beriki 'ten'. The numbers six to eight follow a system in base five, as in Aymara: 6 = 5 + 1, etc.
• Leco has a limited number of adverbial lexemes, as, for example: kumte 'late', ch'eka 'yesterday', china 'very'. Also, it has a group of postpositions, which express location and which are combined easily with the case markers, such as hekor 'afuera', apor 'near', haz 'down'.
• In regard to the verbs, these are characterized by functioning as the nucleus of the verbal phrase and by receiving inflectional suffixes of time and person, besides having a series of derivational suffixes. Apart from the auxiliaries neck and kach, Leco has intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive verbs. A typical characteristic of this language is that of giving much attention to the position of objects. It manifests itself, for example, in the following verbs, which always combine a noun expressing a position with the auxiliary kach 'to be': chelkach 'to be laid halfway over an object', lewakach 'to be hanging', chakach 'to be sitting', etc.

Morphology

In regard to the morphological characteristics of Leco, one can point out the following (van de Kerke, 2009: 297–313).

• Leco is a highly agglutinative language and it uses predominantly suffixes.
• In regard to morphology of nouns, nouns have inflection for number, by means of the pluralizing suffix -aya, as in choswai-tha-aya [woman-DIM-PL] 'little women', and inflection for case, as for example the genitive -moki, which is used with alienable entities like kuchi 'perro' in yo-moki kuchi [1SG-GEN] 'mi perro'; the dative -(i)ki, which indicates direction or goal, as in (1); the locative -ra or -te, which marks a locative complement or a directional locative, as in (2); the ablative -rep / -bet, which indicates the locativee origin, as in (3), etc.

(1)	seneng-ki	hu-ku-ate	dulsi
	all-DAT	3PL-dar-PAS.1	candy
	‘To all I gave a candy.’

(2)	u	trabajo-ra	chera	abon-da-no-ne	lamka-sich-ne
	what	work-LOC	we	find-FUT-NML-INT	work-INF-TOP
	‘In what work are we going to find work (in the town)?’

(3)	lilwo	ubus-no-te	lal-rep/lal wara-rep
	grasshopper	come out-NML-DCL	earth-ABL/earth interior-ABL
	‘The grasshopper comes out from the earth / from within the earth.’

• Nouns can be combined, furthermore, with a set of derivative suffixes, as, for example, the diminutive -tha, which besides being combined with substantivees, as in won-tha [house-DIM] 'little house', is combined also with adjectives, as is seen in (4). Another derivative suffix which affects nouns is the 'delimitative' -beka, which expresses the idea of 'no more', 'only', as is seen in (5). Leco has also deverbative derivative suffixes (which derive nouns from verbs), as, for example, the infinitivizer -sich in (6), which derives an infinitive form which functions as the subject of a sentence; and the agentive -no, which form derived nouns which express an agentive, such as lamas-no [work-AG] 'worker'.

(4)	wesra	nos-tha-te
	Guanay	far-DIM-DCL
	‘Guanay is a little far.’

(5)	yo-phos-beka	ho-ra	t’e-no-te
	1SG-daughter-DEL	this-LOC	live-NML-DCL
	‘My daughter no longer lives here.’

(6)	lamka-sich	yu-gustas-in-te
	work-INF	1.O-please-NEG-DCL
	‘Working does not please me.’

• In regard to verbal morphology, verbs have inflection of person, which is formed by means of suffixes which mark the person of the subject and prefixes which mark the object, as is shown in (7).

(7)	ya-ache-ki	yo-moki	aycha	yin-k’o-a-ka-te
	1SG-father-GEN	1SG-GEN	meat	1.BEN-eat-PF-AUX-DCL
	‘My father has eaten the meat for me.’ (I was not able to eat any more)

• As is seen in Figure 2, besides inflection for person, the verb in Leco can be combined with a series of inflectional suffixes (which mark, for example, distinctions of aspectual-temporal type). By way of example, (8) shows the use of the suffix of indirect knowledge (CID) -mono, which is combined with the verb moch 'say' from which it has been derived.

Figure 2: Inflection of the verb

Verbal root	PROG	NEG	NML/N/ADJ	PL	CID	AUX	PAS	DCL/INT	Person
									-o
			Adj/N					-t	-m/-n
				-aya	-mono	-ka	-taah
V	-cha	-in	-no					-ne	-am/-an
		-ir	-a						-no(h)
			-ich						-s

(8)	era	fuerza-hote-to:	ya-ache-ki-ka	mo-no-mono-taah-te
	I	strength-POS-PRS.1	1SG-father-GEN-COMP	say-NML-CID-PAS-DCL
	‘It is said that he said "I have strength like my father".’

• In regard to the category of mood, in Leco one uses suffixes like -kama 'power', -bibi 'almost', among others, to indicate a possible event, as is seen in (9). Leco has, besides, two forms of imperative of the second person, one directed to only one person and another directed to various persons, as is seen in (10a) and (10b).

(9)	chika	es-cha-no-te	lamkas-in-kama-te-am
	very	rain-PRS-NML-DCL	work-NEG-work-DCL-PL.1
	‘It is raining heavily; we can not work.’

(10a)	iya	ta	bal-a
	you (singular)	maize (corn)	plant-IMP
	‘Plant maize (corn)!’

(10b)	heka	ta	bal-noku
	you (singular)	maize (corn)	plant-IMP.PL
	‘(You [plural]) plant maize (corn)!’

• Verbs in Leco can be combined, besides, with a set of derivational suffixes, related to aspect, as for example the completive -hi in (11), to distinctions of movement, as, for example, the modifying suffix of movement wari- in (12), and to valence, as for example the reciprocal suffix -mo in (13) and the causative -ki in (14).

(11)	yo-moki	warsuch	tiltil-hi-no-te
	1-GEN	trousers	undone-CMPL-NML-DCL
	‘My trousers have been completely broken.’

(12)	wotha	wonon-wari-no-te
	hill	caminar-subir.por.tierra-NML-DCL
	‘He/she is walking up the hill.’

(13)	yobas-aya	yanapas-mo-no-aya-te	dihwo	bal-ich-ki
	man-PL	help-REC-NML-PL-DCL	peanut	plant-INF-DAT
	‘The men are helping each other to plant peanuts.’

(14)	o-botha-tha-ki	do-ko-ki-a
	2-brother-DIM-DAT	3.O-take-CAUS-IMP
	‘Make him take your (singular) little brother!’

In Leco, one sees productive processes of reduplication. With substantives, reduplication can be interpreted as 'a heap/much of', with adjectives, 'a high degree of'; with verbs the interpretation is very diverse and not always transparent; thus we have the reduplicate verb tiltilkach 'to be undone', derived from tiltil 'undone', which expresses a state or process, for which reason it is combined also with the auxiliary kach 'to be'.

Speech

In regard to the characteristics of spoken Leco, one can point out the following:

• As van de Kerke (2009: 315) points out, the order of the constituents is not fixed, although, in general, the subject takes the first position, especially if it involves a topicalized element. Besides, the object often precedes the verb, as is seen in (15):

(15)	hino	yobas-ne	palanta	soh-cha-no-te	moki-a	choswai-ki
	this	man-TOP	platano	look at-PR-NML-DCL	GEN-3	wife-DAT
	‘This man is searching for platano for his wife (of another).’

• Leco is a pro-drop language; this means that an explicit pronominal subject is not required, although this can appear as in (16) (chera 'we'):

(16)	chera	du-kama-tean	Burua	da-in-tean	du-ch
	we	speak-can-1PL	Leko	want-NEG-1PL	speak-INF
	'We can speak Leco, but we do not want to speak it.

• In Leco, one sees simple and compound speech (van de Kerke, 2009: 316–324). In regard to simple speech, diverse types are distinguished, such as, for example: existential speech, as (17), declarative speech, as (18), interrogative speech, be it confirmative, as (19a), or informative, as (19b), among others.

(17)	aycha	ne-no-te
	meat	exist-NML-DCL
	‘There is meat!’

(18)	wesra	nos	na-in-tha-te
	Guanay	far	be-NEG-DIM-DCL
	‘Guanay is very near.’

(19a)	sok’och	da-no-ne	iya-n
	food	want-NML-INT	you (singular)-INT
	‘Do you (singular) want to eat?’

(19b)	ha-ne	busa-cha-no-n
	who-INT	arrive-PRS-NML-INT
	‘Who is arriving?’

• In regard to compound speech, diverse types are also distinguished: juxtaposed speech, as (20), coordinate speech, as (21), and subordinate speech (causal, concessive, temporal, conditional, consecutive), as (22):

(20)	on	chelas-no	yobas-ne	k’o-in-te	wet-ra-no-te
	that	become sick-NML	man-TOP	eat-NML-DCL	die-FUT-DCL
	‘That sick man is not eating; he is going to die.’

(21)	on	chelas-no	k’o-in-te	no	ko-in-te	wet-ra-no-te
	that	become sick-NML	eat-NML-DCL	not	drink-NML-DCL	die-FUT-DCL
	‘That sick man is neither eating nor drinking; he is going to die.’

(22)	ch’epe	yin-soncho-a-ra	katre-te	bar-ka-cha-no-to:
	ill	1.BEN-become sick-PF-LOC	cot-LOC	lying-AUX-PRS-NML-PRS.1
	‘Because I feel ill I am lying on a cot.’

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Leco.[9]

gloss	Leco
one	ver
two	foi
three	chishai
head	barua
eye	bisiri
hand	bu-eú
woman	chusna
water	dua
sun	heno
maize	ta

References

1. Leco at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. http://52ica.etnolinguistica.org/adelaar
3. Kaufman, Terrence. 1994. The native languages of South America. In: Christopher Moseley and R. E. Asher (eds.), Atlas of the World’s Languages, 59–93. London: Routledge.
4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Leco". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
5. "Censo de Población y Vivienda 2012 Bolivia Características de la Población". Instituto Nacional de Estadística, República de Bolivia. p. 29.
6. http://52ica.etnolinguistica.org/adelaar
7. Willem Adelaar; Simon van de Kerke. "The Puquina and Leko languages". Symposium: Advances in Native South American Historical Linguistics, July 17-18, 2006, at the 52nd International Congress of Americanists, Seville, Spain. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
8. Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
9. Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.

External links

• Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: LEKO Alain Fabre, 2005 (in Spanish)
• Lenguas de Bolivia (online edition) Provides information about a number of indigenous languages in Bolivia, such as Leko.