Xinca (or ''Xinka'', Sinca, or ''Szinca'') is a small extinct family of

Mesoamerican languages Mesoamerican languages are the languages Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The ar ...

; formerly, the language was regarded as a single

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

. Xinca was once spoken by the Indigenous

Xinca people The Xinka, or Xinca, are a non-Mayan Indigenous people of Mesoamerica, with communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador, and in the mountainous region to the north. Their languages (the Xincan languages) are ...

in southeastern

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

, much of

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

, and parts of

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

. They have also historically been referred to as Popoluca or Popoluca-Xinca; Popoluca being a

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 ...

term for unintelligible speech.

Classification

The Xincan languages have no demonstrated affiliations with other language families. Lehmann (1920) tried linking Xincan with Lencan, but the proposal was never demonstrated.Lyle Campbell, 1997. ''American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America'' An automated computational analysis ( ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013.
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'. also found lexical similarities between Xincan and Lencan. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance. The Xincan languages were formerly regarded as one language isolate. However, the most recent studies suggest they were indeed a language family.

Languages

There were at least four Xincan languages, each of which is now

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 ...

. Yupiltepeque was spoken in

Jutiapa Department Jutiapa Department is a Departments of Guatemala, department of Guatemala that borders along El Salvador and the Pacific Ocean. The capital is the city of Jutiapa. As of 2018, it has a population of 488,395. The department is divided into seven ...

, while the rest were spoken in Santa Rosa Department. Campbell also suggests that the Alagüilac language of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán may have in fact been a Xincan language. * Yupiltepeque: extinct by 1920. Once also spoken in

Jutiapa Jutiapa is a city and a municipality in the Jutiapa department of Guatemala. Located 124 km from the city of Guatemala City, at an altitude of 892 m (2,926 ft), it is the capital of the department of Jutiapa. Its Catedral San Crist ...

. * Jumaytepeque: discovered in the early 1970s by

Lyle Campbell Lyle Richard Campbell (born October 22, 1942) is an American scholar and linguist known for his studies of indigenous American languages, especially those of Central America, and on historical linguistics in general. Campbell is professor emeri ...

, spoken near the top of Volcán Jumaytepeque. This is the most divergent variety, and is not mutually intelligible with that of

Chiquimulilla Chiquimulilla is a town and municipality in the Santa Rosa department of Guatemala. It is located about from the Pacific coast. The town is an important regional trade location and junction. The most important products are leather goods. Th ...

. All fluent native speakers of the language have died, but it may have some semi-speakers remaining. *

: extinct * Guazacapán: extinct, some semi-speakers remain. To these, ''

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

'' adds * Sinacantán Sachse (2010) considers all Xincan speakers today to be semi-speakers, with the completely fluent speakers having already died.

History

Xincan languages have many loanwords from

Mayan languages The Mayan languages In linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and a ...

especially in agricultural terms, suggesting extensive contact with

Mayan peoples Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today ...

. According to Campbell, Xinca also has a "vast number of Mixe-Zoquean loanwords", suggesting contact with now extinct Mixe-Zoque varieties of the Guatemalan Pacific coast. In the 16th century the territory of the Xinca extended from the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

coast to the mountains of Jalapa. In 1524 the population was conquered by the

Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy (political entity), Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered ...

. Many of the people were forced into slavery and compelled to participate in the conquest of modern-day

. It is from this that the names for the town, river, and bridge "Los Esclavos" (The Slaves) are derived in the area of Cuilapa, Santa Rosa. After 1575, the process of Xinca cultural extinction accelerated, mainly due to their exportation to other regions. This also contributed to a decrease in the number of Xinca-language speakers. One of the oldest references concerning this language was presented by the archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz during a visit to the diocese of Taxisco in 1769.

Contemporary situation

Xinca was most recently spoken in seven municipalities and a village in the departments of Santa Rosa and

. In 1991, it was reported that the language had only 25 speakers; the 2006 edition of the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'' reported fewer than ten. Nonetheless, of the 16,214 Xinca who responded to the 2002 census, 1,283 reported being Xinka speakers, most probably semi-speakers or people who knew a few words and phrases of the languages. However by 2010, all completely fluent speakers have died, leaving only semi-speakers who know the languages.

Distribution

Xincan languages were once more widespread, which is evident in various toponyms with Xincan origins (Campbell 1997:166). These toponyms are marked by such locative prefixes as ''ay''- "place of" (e.g. Ayampuc, Ayarza), ''al''- "place of" (Alzatate), ''san''- "in" (e.g. Sansare, Sansur), or with the locative suffixes -''(a)gua'' or -''hua'' "town, dwelling" (e.g. Pasasagua, Jagua, Anchagua, Xagua, Eraxagua). Kaufman (1970:66) lists the following towns as once being Xinca-speaking.Kaufman, Terrence. 1970. ''Proyecto de alfabetos y ortografías para escribir las lenguas mayances''. Antigua: Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra. * Yupiltepeque * Jumaytepeque (Nueva Santa Rosa) * San Juan Tecuaco *

* Taxisco *

Santa María Ixhuatán Santa María Ixhuatán is a municipality in the Santa Rosa department in southeastern Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the north ...

* Guazacapán Sachse (2010), citing colonial-era sources, lists the following villages in Santa Rosa Department and

as having Xinca speakers during the Spanish colonial era. * Guanagazapa (Guanagazapan), in

Escuintla Department Escuintla () is one of the 22 departments of Guatemala. The capital of the department is the city of Escuintla. Escuintla covers an area of 4,384 km2 and is situated in the coastal lowland region, directly south of Guatemala City, and bord ...

* Guaymango * Itiquipaque (also known as Atiquipaque or Nextiquipaque) * Tepeaco * Tacuilula * Taxisco * Guazacapán *

* Sinacantán * Nancinta * Tecuaco * Ixhuatán (Izguatlán) * Jumaytepéque *

Jalpatagua Jalpatagua () is a town and municipality in the Jutiapa department of Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, t ...

* Comapa * Yupiltepeque * Atescatempa * La Zacualpa * Contepeque * Achuapa * Valle Tierra Blanca (parish of Tacuilula) * Santa Ana (parish of Xinacantán) * San Juan Mixtán (a trilingual village where Spanish,

, and Xinca were spoken)

Phonology

The phonological system of Xincan languages had some variance, as evidenced by the variations in recorded phonology exhibited among semi-speakers of the two remaining languages.

Vowels

It is generally agreed upon that the Xincan languages have 6 vowels.

Consonants

These charts show the consonants of two languages, used by the final semi-speakers of the language. Many younger semi-speakers also used the phonemes /b, d, g, f, ŋ/ due to greater influence from Spanish.

References

* Campbell, Lyle (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. . * Sachse, Frauke (2010).
Reconstructive description of eighteenth-century Xinka grammar
'. Utrecht: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics. . * Rogers, Chris Rogers. (2016) ''The Use and Development of the Xinkan Languages''. University of Texas Press

External links

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbXae2y6hNU {{authority control Language families Indigenous languages of Central America Languages of Guatemala Jutiapa Department Santa Rosa Department, Guatemala Languages of El Salvador Mesoamerican languages Endangered unclassified languages Macro-Chibchan languages