Guachichil language
 | This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. (September 2024) |
| Cuachichil | |
|---|---|
| Guachichil | |
| Native to | Mexico |
| Region | Zacatecas |
| Ethnicity | Guachichil |
| Extinct | (date missing) |
| Revival | 2020s |
unclassified (Corachol Uto-Aztecan?) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
0w6 | |
| Glottolog | None |
 Guachichil | |
The Guachichil language is an extinct language formerly spoken by the Guachichil and very little is known about it. It may have been an Uto-Aztecan language closely related to the Huichol language,[1] or connected to the Coahuiltecan languages, though the latter hypothesis has now been rejected.
It is a poorly documented language known only by the structural and morphological information deducible from proper names and place names. Guachichil was divided into 3 dialects or varieties, the Bozalo (or vocalo), the Negrito and another called simply Guachichil, and was closely related to the language of the erased tribes called Quinigua (Martínez, 2019), it has been classified without providing more details within the Uto-Aztecan languages. Others are inclined to relate it to the hypothetical Coahuiltecan family, which would include Guachichil, Quinigua, Maratino, Naolan, Karankawa and Coahuilteco, having an even more distant relationship with Comecrudo and Cotoname, based on the structure of proper names. Examples of Guachichile proper names are Aiguaname, Analale, Apamatacaliname, Atapi, Ayoaname, Clonemua, Cuaguilo, Guamala, Juquianame, Malioname, Micolaqui, Mohelo, Nochicaguitaname, Omoahxi, Quiguama, Saitoa, Taesani, Tepuchi, etc. (Martínez, 2019). Examples of place names are zapalinamé (a mountain range), guanamé (a hacienda), hipoa (a town), mapimí, matehuala (a city).
They are characterized by frequently starting with the morpheme ma-, and ending with the form -amé, -qui, -ane, -lo, -na or -al, it contains a series of frequent diphthongs which are ai as in aiguaname, ua as in clonemua, au as in cuutaquelaux, in nauque or in quepinao, or as in omoahxi, or in saitoa. Several words can be related to languages such as Quinigua, like the name xilaguani, it can be divided into xila "snake" and guani "like", interpreting "like a snake", guani "like", in turn it can be associated with the Maratino "niwa / chigger" of equal meaning. The frequent ending -amé can be associated with the Coahuilteco "am é" used to create participles and adjectives, -le in Comecrudo and -né in Quinigua.[2]
As of 2023, the Guachichil Nation, centered in San Luís Potosí, Mexico, (composed of many affiliated Guachichil groups spread across Mexico and the United States) announced ongoing work to revitalize and reconstruct the Guachichil language. A dictionary containing preserved Guachichil words and words added through reconstruction efforts currently exists and is growing.[3]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Miller, Wick. (1983). Uto-Aztecan languages. In W. C. Sturtevant (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 10, pp. 113–124). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
- ^ Diguet, Léon (2013-04-24), "6. El idioma huichol. Contribución al estudio de las lenguas mexicanas (1911)", Por tierras occidentales: entre sierras y barrancas, Historia de Nayarit, Mexico: Centro de estudios mexicanos y centroamericanos, pp. 161–193, ISBN 978-2-8218-2796-7, retrieved 2021-11-03
- ^ "Guachichil Language and the Guachichil Indian Tribe (Huachichil, Quauhchichitl)". www.native-languages.org. Retrieved 2024-09-08.
 | This article related to the Indigenous languages of the Americas is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |