Given how ubiquitous Spanish and Portuguese are in South America, it’s easy to forget that centuries ago, before Europeans ever discovered the vast continent, hundreds of languages were spoken vigorously in all corners of the land mass. Estimates of the number of languages spoken in pre-Columbian South America reach as high as 2,000, with the continent home to more than 35 different language families. Today, many of these languages are still spoken, though they’re overshadowed by Spanish or Portuguese and face endangerment. Wichí is one of these languages.
Wichí is better classified as a group of languages rather than a single language, with all three Wichí languages together claiming roughly 40,000 native speakers. That might not sound like a lot, but given the dire situation of Amerindian languages, that actually makes Wichí one of the bigger autochthonous languages on the continent. Unfortunately, Wichí is projected to lose ground in the future, as speakers are required to learn Spanish to access governmental services such as education. The language is too small for most translation firms to bother with, resulting in a concerning dearth of translation services for Wichí—so that’s where we at TranslationServices.com come in, proud to present our new Wichí translation services.
Anyone in need of Wichí translation services should reach out to us for a free quote today!
Discovering the precious and unique Wichí languages
The three Wichí languages are concentrated around the Pilcomayo River in Argentina and Bolivia, with the majority of Wichí speakers calling Argentina home. The smallest Wichí language, called Wichí Lhamtés Nocten (or Weenhayek), is used by roughly 2,000 people mostly in Bolivia, but Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay and Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz, boasting 26,000 and 31,000 native speakers, respectively, are both mostly spoken in Argentina. In particular, Wichí speakers can be found in Argentina’s Chaco, Formosa, Salta, and Jujuy provinces.
The Wichí languages are unique in that they come from the Matacoan language family, a small family native to the Chaco region of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. The languages are grammatically complex, exhibiting a polysynthetic nature where heavy morphological inflection drives the grammatical connections in a sentence. Most inflection is formed through suffixes, with the Wichí languages demonstrating minimal prefix use. Another interesting feature of the Wichí languages is their distinction between alienable and inalienable possession, where nouns are treated differently depending on whether they’re an inherent part of someone, such as a body part. These inalienable nouns must always appear in a possessed form.
Your go-to team for all your Wichí translation needs
If you’re looking for high-quality Wichí translation services, you have limited options—but we’re proud to announce that you’ve found a reliable and high-quality Wichí translation team here with us. We’ve taken great care to hire translators of all three Wichí languages, so whether you need translation services for Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay, Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz, or even Wichí Lhamtés Nocten, our team can help. And since we offer our translation services in both directions—to Wichí and from Wichí—we can confidently work with clients both in the Chaco region and far beyond.
The flexibility of our team isn’t just limited to the Wichí variant and the translation direction—it also extends to the type of documents we can translate. In essence, we can translate any content you might have, be it business papers, academic or pedagogical materials, literary content, digital media, or personal correspondence. While we can’t necessarily accommodate all niches, our Wichí translators do represent a wide array of disciplines and translation domains, so simply let us know the specifics of your project, and we’ll do our best to match you with the best-suited Wichí translator. We may even be able to handle esoteric language—so don’t hesitate to ask!
Our Wichí translators are eager to help you translate into or out of their language—so why wait? Get in touch today and put our passionate Wichí translators to work!