Chiquitano language

Mason (1950) lists:[8]

Chiquito

• North (Chiquito)
  • Manasí (Manacica)
  • Penoki (Penokikia)
  • Pinyoca; Kusikia
  • Tao; Tabiica
• Churapa

Locations of the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos with present international borders

According to Čestmír Loukotka (1968), dialects were Tao (Yúnkarirsh), Piñoco, Penoqui, Kusikia, Manasi, San Simoniano, Churapa.[9]

• Tao (Yúnkarirsh) - spoken at the old missions of San Rafael, Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Ignacio, San Juan, Santo Corazón, and Concepción, Bolivia.
• Piñoco - spoken at the missions of San Xavier, San José, and San José de Buenaventura.
• Penoqui - spoken at the old mission of San José. (However, Combès suggests that Penoqui was a synonym of Gorgotoqui and may have been a Bororoan language.[10][11])
• Cusiquia - once spoken north of the Penoqui tribe.
• Manasi - once spoken at the old missions of San Francisco Xavier and Concepción, Santa Cruz province.
• San Simoniano - now spoken in the Sierra de San Simón and the Danubio River.
• Churapa - spoken on the Piray River, Santa Cruz province.

Otuke, a Bororoan language, was also spoken in some of the missions.[9]

Chiquitano varieties listed by Nikulin (2020):[7]

• Chiquitano
  • Bésɨro (also known as Lomeriano Chiquitano), spoken in the Lomerío region and in Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez Province. Co-official status and has a standard orthography.
  • Migueleño Chiquitano (in San Miguel de Velasco and surroundings), moribund with fewer than 30 speakers
  • Eastern[1]
    • Ignaciano Chiquitano (in San Ignacio de Velasco and surroundings)[12]
    • Santiagueño Chiquitano (in Santiago de Chiquitos)
• Divergent varieties
  • Sansimoniano (spoken in the far northeast of Beni Department)
  • Piñoco (formerly spoken in the missions of San José de los Boros, San Francisco Xavier de los Piñoca, and San José de Buenavista/Desposorios; see also Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos)

Nikulin (2019) proposes that Camba Spanish has a Piñoco substratum. Camba Spanish was originally spoken in Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia, but is now also spoken in Beni Department and Pando Department.[13]

Some Chiquitano also prefer to call themselves Monkóka (plural form for 'people'; the singular form for 'person' is Monkóxɨ).[1]

Nikulin also tentatively proposes an Eastern subgroup for the varieties spoken in San Ignacio de Velasco, Santiago de Chiquitos, and Brazil.[1]

In Brazil, Chiquitano is spoken in the municipalities of Cáceres, Porto Esperidião, Pontes e Lacerda, and Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade in the state of Mato Grosso.[14][15]

The following list of Jesuit and pre-Jesuit-era historical dialect groupings of Chiquitano is from Nikulin (2019),[13] after Matienzo et al. (2011: 427–435)[16] and Hervás y Panduro (1784: 30).[17] The main dialect groups were Tao, Piñoco, and Manasi.

Penoquí (Gorgotoqui?), possibly a Bororoan language, was spoken in San José.

[18]

Chiquitano has regressive assimilation triggered by nasal nuclei / ɨ̃ ĩ ũ õ ã ẽ/ and targeting consonant onsets within a morpheme.

• /suβũ/ → [suˈmũ] 'parrot (sp.)'[19]