Munichi is a recently extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles (16 km) west of

Yurimaguas Yurimaguas is a port town in the Loreto Region of the northeastern Peruvian Amazon. Historically associated with the Mainas missions, the culturally diverse town is affectionately known as the "Pearl of the Huallaga" (''Perla del Huallaga''). Yu ...

, Loreto Region,

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

. In 1988, there were two mother-tongue speakers, but they had not met since the 1970s. The last known fluent speaker, Victoria Huancho Icahuate, died in the late 1990s. As of 2009 there were several semi-speakers who retained significant lexical, and partial grammatical, knowledge of the language (Michael et al. 2013). It is also called ''Balsapuertiño'', named after the village of Balsapuerto in the

department of Loreto Loreto () is Peru's northernmost department and region. Covering almost one-third of Peru's territory, Loreto is by far the nation's largest department; it is also one of the most sparsely populated regions due to its remote location in the Ama ...

, Peru. Word order in Munichi is VSO.

Other varieties

Unattested "Munichi stock" varieties listed by Loukotka (1968): *Tabaloso - spoken in Loreto department in the village of Tabalosa on the Mayo River *Chasutino (Cascoasoa) - once spoken in the village of Chasuta on the

Huallaga River The Huallaga River is a tributary of the Marañón River, part of the Amazon Basin. Old names for this river include ''Guallaga'' and ''Rio de los Motilones''. The Huallaga is born on the slopes of the Andes in central Peru and joins the Marañón ...

; now only Quechua is spoken. *Huatama (Otanavi) - once spoken in the villages of

San José de Sisa San José de Sisa is a town in Northern Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National se ...

and Otanahui in the same region; now only Quechua is spoken. *Lama (Lamista) - extinct language once spoken on the

Moyobamba Moyobamba () or Muyupampa ( Quechua ''muyu'' circle, ''pampa'' large plain, "circle plain") is the capital city of the San Martín Region in northern Peru. Called "Santiago of eight valleys of Moyobamba" or "Maynas capital". There are 50,073 inha ...

River. The last survivors now speak only Quechua or Spanish. *Suchichi (Suriche) - extinct language once spoken in the village of

Tarapoto Tarapoto is a commercial hub town in the San Martín Province of the Department of San Martín of northern Peru. It is an hour by plane from Lima, in the high jungle plateau to the east of what is known as the ''selva baja'' (low jungle). Althou ...

in the same region *Zapaso - extinct language from the same region, once spoken on the

Saposoa Saposoa is a town in Northern Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , nation ...

River *Nindaso - once spoken on the

north of the Zapaso tribe *Nomona - once spoken on the left bank of the

River Varieties listed by Mason (1950): *Muniche *Muchimo *Otanabe *Churitana

Classification

The language is considered an isolate (Michael et al. 2013), but the

pronominal In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...

suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...

bear a close resemblance to those reconstructed for proto- Arawakan (Gibson 1996:18-19), and some lexical items are similar to ones in Arawakan languages (Jolkesky 2016:310-317). Although Jolkesky (''id''.) argues that the language belongs to a putative Macro-Arawakan stock, evidence has yet to be provided for placing it either in a sister branch to the Arawakan language family or in a branch within this language family. There is substantial borrowing from the local variety of

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

, and to a lesser extent from

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and Cahuapanan languages (Michael et al. 2013).

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Cholon-Hibito, Kechua, and Mochika language families due to contact.

Phonology

Munichi has six vowels: /a, e, i, ɨ, o, u/.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Munichi. :

References

Bibliography

* Gibson, Michael L. 1996. ''El Munichi: Un idioma que se extingue''. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 42. Pucallpa: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano
Available here
* Jolkesky, M. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas. Brasilia: UnB. PhD Dissertation
Available here
* Michael, Lev, Stephanie Farmer, Greg Finley, Christine Beier, and Karina Sullón Acosta. 2013. A sketch of Muniche segmental and prosodic phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 79(3):307-347. *Michael, L.; Beier, Ch.; Acosta, K. S.; Farmer, S.; Finley, G.; Roswell, M. (2009). Dekyunáwa: Un diccionario de nuestro idioma muniche. (Manuscript). {{South American languages Extinct languages of South America Language isolates of South America Languages of Peru Indigenous languages of the Americas Languages extinct in the 1990s Verb–subject–object languages