Mosetén

© Jeanette Sakel

Mosetén is a South American indigenous language that is spoken in the foothills of the Bolivian Andes. It has about 800 speakers and belongs to the small language family Mosetenan. All Mosetenes also speak Spanish, the national language of Bolivia - in most cases more frequently and more proficiently than Mosetén. Therefore it is not surprising that Mosetén is heavily influenced by Spanish. For example, it takes over Spanish 'utterance modifiers' such as discourse markers (1), coordinating conjunctions (2) and adverbial clause markers (3). In the examples below, the Spanish markers focused on are highlighted:

1. ö-we jij-ti-si' osea jam-bi'
F-DR go-DT-L.F that.means.E NG-yet
chhome' wën-chhï-' Karanawi.
also move-DC-F.S Caranavi
'(It is) that one (road) that leads here, that is, back then it did not lead to Caranavi yet.'
2. me'-katyi' raej-dye-si' yomo-i-'-si' wën-jö-i
so-EH all-B-F night(F)-VI-F.S-L.F move-DJ-M.S
pero jam-katyi' ji'-naij-ti.
but.E NG-EH CA-see-VD.RE.M.S
'Thus, he came all nights, but was never seen.'
3. mö'-khan katyi' bae'-i-' ashta ke
3F-IN EH live-VI-F.S until/when.E that.E
mö'-khan nä'-tya-ki-' äwä'-mö'.
3F-IN born-VD-AN-F.S child-3F.SG
There she lived, until/when she gave birth to her children.'

The Spanish forms are sometimes adjusted to the phonology of Mosetén, such as ashta in (3), which comes from Spanish hasta 'until'. Furthermore, ashta in Mosetén can both mean 'until' or 'when', i.e. has slightly different functions in Mosetén.