Chimuan languages

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Chimuan (also Chimúan) is a small extinct language family of northern Peru and Ecuador (inter-Andean valley).

Family division

Chimuan consisted of 3 languages:

A. Yunga

1. Mochica (a.k.a. Yunga, Chimú)

B. Ecuador brach

2. Cañari (a.k.a. Cañar, Kanyari)

3. Puruhá (a.k.a. Puruwá, Puruguay)

All languages are now extinct.

Mochica was one of the major languages of pre-Columbian South America. It was documented by Fernando de la Carrera and Middendorff in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries respectively. It became extinct ca. 1950, although some people remember a few words. Adelaar & Muysken (2004) consider Mochica a language isolate for now.

Cañari and Puruhá are documented with only a few words. These two languages are usually connected with Mochica. However, as their documentation level is so low, it may not be possible to confirm this association. According to Adelaar & Muysken (2004), Jijón y Caamaño's evidence of their relationship is only a single word: Mochica nech "river", Cañari necha.

See also

• Mochica language
• Extinct language

Links

• PROEL: Familia Chimúan

Bibliography

• Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press.
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46-76). London: Routledge.

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