Mapudungun alphabet

This article deals with the proposed orthographies of Mapudungun. The Mapuche did not have a writing system when the Spanish arrived, and historically there have been a number of proposals for a Mapudungun alphabet, all of them using Latin script. To this day, no consensus has been achieved between authorities, linguists and Mapuche communities on an unified writing system; the main systems are the following:

• Alfabeto Mapuche Unificado ("Unified Alphabet"), used by Chilean linguists and other people in many publications in/on the language. It has the support of the Chilean Catholic church.
• Grafemario Ragileo, made by Anselmo Ranguileo Lincopil (1922–1992) and defended by the indigenous Mapuche organization Consejo de Todas las Tierras. The only alphabet made by a mapuche.
• Nhewenh writing system, an online proposal [1] by Heinrich Puschmann, based on the ascii character set in order facilitate the usage of the language on the internet.
• Azumchefi (also called Azümchefe), proposed by the Corporación Nacional de Desarrollo Indígena (CONADI) as a summary of about six earlier proposals, and recognized by the Chilean Ministry of Education, but not widely used.

Consonants

Mapudungun has the following consonant system.

Phoneme	Unified Alphabet	Ragileo	Nhewenh	Azumchefi	NICE	place of articulation	type of articulation
/p/	p	p	p	p	p	bilabial	stop
/t̟/	ṯ	*	td	*	t'	interdental	stop
/t/	t	t	t	t	t	alveolar	stop
/k/	k	k	k	k	k	velar	stop
/tʃ/	ch	c	ch	ch	ch	postalveolar	affricate
/tʂ/	tr	x	tr	tx	tr	retroflex	affricate
/f/	f	f	f	f	f	labiodental or bilabial	fricative
/θ/	d	z	sd	z	d	interdental	fricative
/s/	s	s	*	s	s	alveolar	fricative
/ʃ/	sh	*	sh	sh	sh	postalveolar	fricative
/ɻ/	r	r	r	r	r	retroflex	fricative
/m/	m	m	m	m	m	bilabial	nasal
/n̟/	ṉ	h	nd	nh	n'	interdental	nasal
/n/	n	n	n	n	n	alveolar	nasal
/ɲ/	ñ	ñ	nh, ñ	ñ	ñ	palatal	nasal
/ŋ/	ng	g	g	g	ng	velar	nasal
/w/	w	w	w	w	w	labiovelar	approximant
/j/	y	y	j	y	y	palatal	approximant
/ɣ/ or /ɰ/ (**)	g	q	q	q	g	velar	approximant
/l̟/	ḻ	b	ld	lh	l'	interdental	lateral
/l/	l	l	l	l	l	alveolar	lateral
/ʎ/	ll	j	lh	ll	ll	palatal	lateral

(*) Raguileo doesn't distinguish between /s/ and /ʃ/, and between /t̪/ and /t/. Also, Raguileo aims to use only one grapheme for each phoneme (no digraphs), so he uses some letters from the alphabet in a non-standard way.
(**) Corresponds to /ɨ/ in the same way that /j/ corresponds to /i/ and /w/ corresponds to /u/.

Allophones

Vowels

Mapudungun has six vowels. The three high vowels also have corresponding approximant consonants.

Phoneme	Unified Alphabet	Ragileo	Nhewenh	Azumchefi	[front]	[back]	[round]	[high]	[low]
/a/	a	a	a	a	+	-	-	-	+
/e/	e	e	e	e	+	-	-	-	-
/i/	i, y	i	i	i, y	+	-	-	+	-
/o/	o	o	o	o	-	+	+	-	-
/u/	u, w	u	u	u, w	-	+	+	+	-
/ɨ/*	ü	v	v, y	ü	-	-	-	+	-

(*) When unstressed, it becomes a schwa (ə).