Cañar or Cañari is a poorly attested extinct language of the Marañón River basin in Ecuador which is difficult to classify, apart from being apparently related to Puruhá, though it may have been Chimuan or Barbacoan. (See Cañari–Puruhá languages.) It was the original language of the Cañari people before its replacement by

Kichwa Kichwa (, , also Spanish ) is a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia (''Inga''), as well as extensions into Peru. It has an estimated half million speakers. The most widely spoken dialects are Chimbora ...

and later

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, Ca ...

Cañari substratum in Cañar Quichua

According to Urban (2018), modern-day Cañar

Quichua Kichwa (, , also Spanish ) is a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia (''Inga''), as well as extensions into Peru. It has an estimated half million speakers. The most widely spoken dialects are Chimboraz ...

(spoken in

Cañar Province Cañar () is a province in Ecuador. The capital is Azogues. At the time of census 2010 the province had a population of 225,184. It contains the 16th-century ruins of Ingapirca, the best-known Inca settlement in Ecuador and a product of their ...

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...

) has a Cañari

substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or su ...

, which can be seen in the phonology and lexicon of the dialect. Below is a list of Cañar Quichua words with Barbacoan lexical parallels, and hence likely to be words of Cañari origin. The words were compiled by Urban (2018) from Cordero (1895), Cordero Palacios (1923), and Paris (1961), and are compared in the table below to words the Barbacoan languages Totoró,

Cha'palaa Cha'palaa (also known as Chachi or Cayapa) is a Barbacoan language spoken in northern Ecuador by ca. 3000 ethnic Chachi people. "Cha'palaa" means "language of the Chachi people." This language was described in part by the missionary P. Alberto ...

, and

Tsafiki Tsafiki, also known as Tsachila or Colorado, is a Barbacoan language spoken in Ecuador by c. 2000 ethnic Tsáchila people. Phonology Consonants * /b, d/ are preglottalized �b, ˀdwhen occurring intervocalically. * /k/ can become voiced ...

as well as Proto-Barbacoan reconstructions.Paris, Julio, 1961. ''Gramática de la lengua quichua actualmente en uso entre los indígenas del Eduador'', 3rd edn. Revision and Quichua dictionary by José María Lévesque and Gilberto Mejía. Quito: Santo Domingo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canari Language Chimuan languages Barbacoan languages Extinct languages of South America