Subtiaba is an
extinct
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
Oto-Manguean
The Oto-Manguean or Otomanguean () languages are a large family comprising several subfamilies of indigenous languages of the Americas. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but the Manguean languages, Ma ...
language which was spoken on the Pacific slope of
Nicaragua
Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...
, especially in the Subtiaba district of
León.
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguistics, linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States ...
established a connection between
Subtiaba and Tlapanec. When Lehmann wrote about it in 1909 it was already very endangered or moribund.
The name "Subtiaba" may be of
Nahuatl
Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
origin, from the roots xoctli ("black snail") and atl ("water").
Lexical comparison
Lexical comparison from ''Native American Language Net'':
Native American Language Net
/ref>
See also
* Tlapanecan languages
References
* Campbell, Lyle (1979): "Middle American Languages" en ''The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment'', Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.), Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 902–999.
*
*
External links
Subtiaba
at Summer Institute of Linguistics
OLAC resources in and about the Subtiaba language
{{Oto-Manguean languages
Languages of Nicaragua
Mesoamerican languages
Oto-Manguean languages
Extinct languages of North America
Languages extinct in the 20th century