Macorix (/maso'riʃ/, also rendered Maçorís and Mazorij) was the language of the northern coast of what is today the Dominican Republic. Spanish accounts only refer to three languages on the island: Taino, Macorix, and neighboring

Ciguayo At the time of first contact between Europe and the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean included the Taíno of the northern Lesser Antilles, most of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Cigua ...

. The

Macorix people At the time of first contact between Europe and the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean included the Taíno of the northern Lesser Antilles, most of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguay ...

appear to have been semi-sedentary and their presence seems to have predated the agricultural Taino who came to occupy much of the island. For the early European writers, they shared similarities with the nearby Ciguayos. Their language appears to have been moribund at the time of the

Spanish Conquest The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predec ...

, and within a century it was extinct.

Divisions

Upper Macoris was spoken on the north-central coast of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Magua from Puerto Plata to

Nagua Nagua is the capital of María Trinidad Sánchez province, in the northeastern Dominican Republic. A medium-sized town, Nagua's economy relies on the production of agricultural products, principally rice, coconuts, and cocoa bean. Located on t ...

, and inland to

San Francisco de Macorís San Francisco de Macorís is a city in the Dominican Republic located in the northeast portion of the island, in the Cibao region. It is the capital of the Duarte Province, and the sixth most populated city in the country. The name ''San Franci ...

and further. It was also distributed on the southeast coast of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and t ...

around

San Pedro de Macorís San Pedro de Macorís is a city and municipality (''municipio'') in the Dominican Republic and the capital of the San Pedro de Macorís province in the east region of the country; it is among the 10 largest cities of the Dominican Republic. The ...

. Lower Macoris was spoken in the northwestern part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Magua from Monte Cristi to Puerto Plata, and from the coast inland to the area of

Santiago de los Caballeros Santiago de los Caballeros (; '' en, Saint James of the Knights''), often shortened to Santiago, is the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic and the fourth-largest city in the Caribbean by population. It is the capital of Santiago Prov ...

Lexicon

Little is known of Macorix apart from it being a distinct language from Taino and neighboring Ciguayo. A negative form, ''baeza'' , is the only element of the language that is directly attested. ''Baeza'' could be Arawakan (though not Taino or Iñeri), analyzable as ''ba-ésa'' 'no-thing' = 'nothing'. (Cf. Manao ''ma-esa'' 'no, not',

Paresis In medicine, paresis () is a condition typified by a weakness of voluntary movement, or by partial loss of voluntary movement or by impaired movement. When used without qualifiers, it usually refers to the limbs, but it can also be used to desc ...

''ma-isa'' 'not'. The negative prefix is ''ba-'' in Amarakaeri which, even if it is related to the Arawakan languages, is not close enough to be relevant here.)

Toponyms

There are also some non-Taino toponyms from the area that Granberry & Vescelius (2004) suggest may be

Waroid Waroid is a proposal by Granberry and Vescelius (2004) linking Warao of Venezuela with the extinct Macoris and Guanahatabey languages of the Greater Antilles. Languages ;Waroid * Warao *Caribbean ** Macoris (Macorix) ***Upper Macoris ***Lower ...

: (Cf. a similar list at

Guanahatabey language Guanahatabey (Guanajatabey) was the language of the Guanahatabey people, a hunter-gatherer society that lived in western Cuba until the 16th century. Very little is known of it, as the Guanahatabey died off early in the period of Spanish coloniza ...

References

*Granberry, Julian, & Gary Vescelius (2004) ''Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles'', University Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, {{North American languages Languages of the Dominican Republic Languages of Haiti Pre-Arawakan languages of the Greater Antilles Extinct languages of North America Languages extinct in the 16th century

Divisions

Lexicon

Toponyms

See also

References