Mapudungun
/mapuˈðuŋun/noun
The Indigenous language of the Mapuche people of Chile and western Argentina.
Did you know?Mapudungun remains central to Mapuche cultural identity, including ceremonial traditions led by machi spiritual specialists, although the language’s name itself is a straightforward compound rather than an occult formula.
Etymological Timeline
Precolonial period
Mapudungun
mapu
“Land, territory, or country”
Precolonial period
Mapudungun
dungun
“Speech, language, or the act of speaking”
16th Century
Mapudungun
Mapudungun
“The language associated with the land and its people; the compound combines mapu and dungun”
1606
Spanish records
lengua de Chile
“Early colonial descriptions commonly referred to Mapudungun as the language of Chile”
1765
Mapudungun
mapudungun
“The language recorded and analyzed in Andrés Febrés’s Mapudungun grammar and dictionary”
Modern English
English
Mapudungun
“The established English name for the Mapuche language”