Timote language

Timote–Cuica
Timote–Cuica
Migurí
Native to	Venezuela
Region	Mutús
Ethnicity	Timoto-Cuica people
Native speakers	(200? cited 1977, Mutú)
Language family	Language isolate
Dialects	Timote; Cuica; ?Mutú (Loco);
Language codes
ISO 639-3	([MUF] retired in Ethnologue 15)
Glottolog	timo1237 Timote-Cuica

Timote, also known as Timote–Cuica, is the language of the Timote–Cuica state in the Venezuelan Andes, around the present city of Mérida and south of Lake Maracaibo.

Geographical distribution

Cuica was spoken from Humocaro in Lara to Jajó [wikidata] in Trujillo, and Timote was spoken in the Motatán and Chama river valleys from Timotes [es] to La Grita in Táchira state.

History

At the time of Spanish contact, the Timote and Cuica, who were agriculturalists, inhabited the modern-day states of Mérida and Trujillo in Venezuela. It is said that the Cuicas received the Spaniards in a friendly manner, while the Timotes were more warlike. Descendants of these peoples reside in a number of villages in the region, but are thought to have lost their distinct languages in the early 20th century. However, in 1977, a report by Merrill Seely references a language supposedly spoken in the locality of Mutús, "above" Pueblo Llano Municipality in Mérida state. This language would "almost certainly" be Timote, the original language of the region. The name Timote itself is derived from ti-motɨ 'Mutú speakers'. mutú or mukú is a common toponym in the region,^[1] possibly meaning 'people', 'community', or 'village', and was so common that scholar Julio César Salas [es] "saw it as a suitable replacement for the name Timote".^[2]^[3]

Documentation

Around the beginning of the 20th centiury, a number of local scholars collected data on the Timote language. These include Tulio Febres Cordero, Amílcar Fonseca, and José Ignacio Lares.^[2] These data were compiled and discussed by Paul Rivet (1927).^[3] Alfredo Jahn (1927) also collected anthropological data, along with documentation of the language.^[2]

Classification

Timote shows no immediately apparent similarities with the nearby Arawakan, Cariban, and Chibchan languages. Rivet (1927) compared vocabulary from Timote and Cuica with Páez and a number of Chibchan languages,^[3] with a few similarities visible but "no overall picture", according to Willem Adelaar and Pieter Muysken (2004).^[2] Marcelo Jolkesky (2016) identifies some lexical similarities with the Jirajaran languages.^[4]

Dialects

There is no certainty on whether or not Timote and Cuica were dialects of a single language or distinct from each other. Jahn (1927), who collected data on Timote, claimed that Timote and Cuica were one and the same language, and his data correspond quite closely with the "Cuica" examples collected by Fonseca.^[2]

Mucuchí–Marripú is another dialect of Timote; Campbell (2012) distinguished them as separate languages.^[5]

Phonology

Consonant clusters, somewhat unusual for the area, are found word-initially, especially in Cuica: kču 'bird', stots 'blood', Timote klef 'rainy season', hutn 'dog'.^[2]

Vocabulary

A possible Quechua loanword is present in Timote in the word Fotuto [es], referring to a shell trumpet.^[2]

Numerals

Timote has an obviously decimal numeral system.^[2]

Gloss	Timote	Cuica
1	karí
2	xem, xen
3	šut, sut, hisxut	šuent
4	pit	pití
5	kabó, kabok	kamó
6	kasum, kaksúm, kapsún	katseunt
7	mai-xem, mai-xén	ma-en
8	mai-xut, mai-sxut	mabi-šuent
9	mai-pit	mabi-pita
10	tabís

References

↑ Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America (PDF). Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509427-5.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Adelaar, Willem F. H.; Muysken, Pieter C. (2004-06-10). "Timote–Cuica". The Languages of the Andes (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486852.004. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
1 2 3 Rivet, P. (January 1927). "La famille linguistique Timote (Venezuela)". International Journal of American Linguistics. 4 (2/4): 137–167. doi:10.1086/463765. ISSN 0020-7071.
↑ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
↑ Campbell, Lyle (2012). "Classification of the indigenous languages of South America". In Grondona, Verónica; Campbell, Lyle (eds.). The Indigenous Languages of South America. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 59–166. ISBN 9783110255133.

External links

Fabre: Mutús
Ñáñez, Omar González; Valecillos, Luis Bastidas (2002). "Investigaciones etnolingüísticas sobre el fenómeno "Chontal" en la cuenca alta y media del Chama y en el sector Panamericana del Sur del Lago de Maracaibo". Boletín Antropológico (in Spanish). 20 (56). ISSN 1325-2610. Archived from the original on 2014-06-14. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help)

[1] Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America (PDF). Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509427-5.

[:0-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Adelaar, Willem F. H.; Muysken, Pieter C. (2004-06-10). "Timote–Cuica". The Languages of the Andes (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486852.004. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.

[:1-3] 1 2 3 Rivet, P. (January 1927). "La famille linguistique Timote (Venezuela)". International Journal of American Linguistics. 4 (2/4): 137–167. doi:10.1086/463765. ISSN 0020-7071.

[Jolkesky-2016-4] Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.

[Campbell-SAmerica-5] Campbell, Lyle (2012). "Classification of the indigenous languages of South America". In Grondona, Verónica; Campbell, Lyle (eds.). The Indigenous Languages of South America. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 59–166. ISBN 9783110255133.

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