Munichi is a recently extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles (16 km) west of
Yurimaguas,
Loreto Region
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. 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, 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; now only Quechua is spoken.
*Huatama (Otanavi) - once spoken in the villages of
San José de Sisa and Otanahui in the same region; now only Quechua is spoken.
*Lama (Lamista) - extinct language once spoken on the
Moyobamba River. The last survivors now speak only Quechua or Spanish.
*Suchichi (Suriche) - extinct language once spoken in the village of
Tarapoto in the same region
*Zapaso - extinct language from the same region, once spoken on the
Saposoa River
*Nindaso - once spoken on the
Huallaga River north of the Zapaso tribe
*Nomona - once spoken on the left bank of the
Saposoa River
Varieties listed by
Mason
Mason may refer to:
Occupations
* Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces
* Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cut ...
(1950):
*Muniche
*Muchimo
*Otanabe
*Churitana
Classification
The language is considered an isolate (Michael et al. 2013), but the
pronominal suffixes bear a close resemblance to those reconstructed for proto-
Arawakan
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...
(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
Macro-Arawakan is a proposed language family of South America and the Caribbean centered on the Arawakan languages. Sometimes, the proposal is called Arawakan, and the central family is called ''Maipurean''.
Proposals
Kaufman (1990) includes the ...
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, and to a lesser extent from
Spanish and
Cahuapanan languages
The Cahuapanan languages are a language family spoken in the Amazon basin of northern Peru. They include two languages, Chayahuita and Jebero, which are spoken by more than 11,300 people. Chayahuita is spoken by most of that number, but Jebero i ...
(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 LingüÃstica Peruana, 42. Pucallpa: Instituto LingüÃstico de Verano
Available here
* Jolkesky, M. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguÃstico 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