Kawésqar (Qawasqar), also known as Alacaluf,[3] is an language isolate spoken in southern Chile by the Kawésqar people. Originally there were three regional dialects: northern, central, and southern. (Kakauhua, a.k.a. Chono, is sometimes listed as a related language, but it is completely unattested.) Only a dozen speakers of Kawesqar remain, half of them on Wellington Island, off the southwestern coast of Chile.
The alphabet in use is as follows [1]: a, æ, c, c', e, f, h, i, j, k, k', l, m, n, o, p, p', q, r, rr, s, t, t', u, w, x. However, there are reported to be differences between dialects, and some sounds that are not represented here.
Kawésqar has a complex system of grammatical tense, which includes a basic morphological contrast between future, present, immediate past, recent past, distant past, and mythological past events.
Aguilera Faúndez, Óscar (2001): Gramática de la lengua kawésqar. Temuco: Corporación de Desarrollo Indígena.
Clairis, Christos (1987): El qawasqar. Lingüística fueguina. Teoría y descripción. Valdivia: Universidad Austral de Chile [Anejo de Estudios Filológicos 12].
Pieter C. Muysken. 2004. The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Kawesqar". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
^Spelling variants include Kaweskar, Kawaskar, Qawashqar, Kaueskar and Alakaluf, Halakwulup, Halakwalip; other names include Aksanás, Aksana and Hekaine.
