Tshon

Tshon, more usually called Chonan, is the language family of the nomadic hunter-gatherers of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego; the term comes from a word meaning man or person shared by its languages. Its best-recorded members are Tehuelche, also called Aonikenk, north of the Strait of Magellan, and Selk'nam, or Ona, of north-eastern Tierra del Fuego.

Some scholars include Gününa Küne, the language of the Puelche, though the link remains debated. Magellan's men met Tehuelche speakers at San Julián Bay in 1520 and called them Patagones.

From the eighteenth century Araucanian influence spread across the Pampas, bringing Mapuche speech, horses and new alliances. The advancing Spanish and, after independence, Argentine and Chilean frontiers introduced sheep estates and epidemics that broke up the nomadic world. The Chonan tongues fell silent, leaving Tehuelche and Selk'nam wordlists as their main record.