Language reference
Mapudungun
“speech of the land” — mapu (land) + dungun (speech)
The language of the Mapuche people, spoken in south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. Endangered after generations of pressure, and the object of a broad, determined revitalisation.
Also written / also called
- Mapuzugun (Raguileo and Azümchefe orthographies)
- Mapudungu
- historically “Araucanian” in outside sources — a colonial-era name now generally set aside
Classification
Generally treated as a language isolate — the principal member of the small Araucanian family, with no demonstrated wider relatives.
DocumentedWhere spoken
South-central Chile (Biobío, La Araucanía, Los Ríos, Los Lagos — and Santiago) and southwestern Argentina (Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut).
DocumentedSpeakers
Estimates vary widely with method and definition — commonly cited figures range from roughly 100,000 to 200,000 people with differing degrees of fluency.
ApproximateVitality
Endangered: intergenerational transmission weakened through the 20th century. Revitalisation is active across both states.
DocumentedHow the language is built
Mapudungun is verb-centred and agglutinative — described in the grammatical literature as polysynthetic: a single verb, built up from many meaningful parts, can carry what English spreads across a sentence. Identity itself is built the same way, by joining meanings: mapu + che, people of the land; lafken + che, people of the sea.
Varieties
Regional ways of speaking are commonly described — among them the speech of Pewenche communities of the cordillera and other territorial identities. The Huilliche speech of the far south (also called Chesungun) is closely related and is sometimes counted a distinct language.
Writing systems
Mapudungun has no single standard orthography. Several systems are in use: the Alfabeto Mapuche Unificado (widely used in academic and teaching materials), the Raguileo alphabet, and Azümchefe, promoted by Chilean state institutions. The same word can look quite different across systems — mapudungun and mapuzugun are the same name.
This site follows Unificado conventions and notes variants where they matter.
Revitalisation
Communities, universities and public institutions run teaching programmes; new media carry the language to new speakers. In 2013 the commune of Galvarino in La Araucanía adopted Mapudungun as a co-official language alongside Spanish. Projects such as Kimeltuwe have brought teaching materials to very large audiences online.
Hearing the language
This site will publish native-speaker recordings developed with communities and teachers. We will not synthesise Indigenous-language audio and present it as authentic speech — audio arrives when it can be real. Until then, lessons are text-first and say so.