1.0 The Chipaya language is spoken by about 800 Indians who live on the high Bolivian plateau, 125 miles southwest of Oruro, just above the Salt Lake of Coipasa. This group forms a small linguistic island in the midst of the Aymara Indians. Chipaya is grouped with Uru as Uru-Chipaya. The author has proposed that Chipaya is also genetically related to the Mayan language family.' This paper presents the Chipaya syllable as a structural unit in terms of Pike's theoretical framework of particle, wave, and field.2 A sketch of the phonemes of Chipaya is presented as necessary background to discussion of the syllable.