Arawakan language
Taino
|
---|
Native to
| Bahamas
,
Cuba
,
Dominican Republic
,
Haiti
,
Jamaica
,
Puerto Rico
,
Turks and Caicos
,
Virgin Islands
,
Antigua and Barbuda
,
Montserrat
,
Saint Kitts and Nevis
,
Anguilla
|
---|
Ethnicity
| Taino
,
Ciboney
,
Lucayan
,
Yamaye
|
---|
Extinct
| 19th century
[1]
|
---|
| |
---|
Dialects
|
|
---|
|
ISO 639-3
| tnq
|
---|
| tnq.html
|
---|
Glottolog
| tain1254
|
---|
|
|
Taino
is an extinct
Arawakan language
that was spoken by the
Taino
people of the
Caribbean
. At the time of
Spanish contact
, it was the most common language throughout the Caribbean. Classic Taino (Taino proper) was the native language of the Taino tribes living in the northern
Lesser Antilles
,
Puerto Rico
, the
Turks and Caicos Islands
, and most of
Hispaniola
, and expanding into Cuba. The
Ciboney
dialect is essentially unattested, but colonial sources suggest it was very similar to Classic Taino, and was spoken in the westernmost areas of Hispaniola, the
Bahamas
,
Jamaica
, and most of Cuba.
By the late 15th century, Taino had displaced earlier languages, except in western Cuba and pockets in Hispaniola. As the Taino culture declined during Spanish colonization, the language was replaced by Spanish and other European languages, like English and French. It is believed to have been extinct within 100 years of contact,
[1]
but possibly continued to be spoken in isolated pockets in the Caribbean until the 19th century.
[2]
As the first Indigenous language encountered by Europeans in the Americas, it was a major source of new words borrowed into European languages.
Dialects
[
edit
]
Granberry & Vescelius (2004) distinguish two dialects, one on Hispaniola and further east, and the other on Hispaniola and further west.
- Classic (Eastern) Taino, spoken in Classic Taino and Eastern Taino cultural areas. These were the Lesser Antilles north of Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, central Hispaniola, and the Turks & Caicos (from an expansion in
c.
1200
). Classic Taino was expanding into eastern and even central Cuba at the time of the Spanish Conquest, perhaps from people fleeing the Spanish in Hispaniola.
- Ciboney (Western) Taino, spoken in
Ciboney
and
Lucayan
cultural areas. These were most of Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and the Bahamas.
Columbus wrote that "...from Bahama to Cuba, Boriquen to Jamaica, the same language was spoken in various slight dialects, but understood by all."
[3]
Phonology
[
edit
]
The Taino language was not written. The Tainos used
petroglyphs
,
[4]
but there has been little research in the area. The following phonemes are reconstructed from Spanish records:
[5]
There was also a flap
[
?
]
, which appears to have been an allophone of
/d/
. The
/d/
realization occurred at the beginning of a word and the
/?/
realization occurred between vowels.
Some Spanish writers used the letter
x
in their transcriptions, which could represent
/h/
,
/s/
or
/?/
in the
Spanish orthography
of their day.
A distinction between
/?/
and
/e/
is suggested by Spanish transcriptions of
e
vs
ei/ey
, as in
ceiba
"ceiba". The
/e/
is written
ei
or final
e
in modern reconstructions. There was also a high back vowel
[u]
, which was often interchangeable with
/o/
and may have been an allophone.
There was a parallel set of
nasal vowels
. The nasal vowels
/?/
and
/?/
were rare.
Consonant clusters
were not permitted in the onset of syllables. The only consonant permitted at the end of a syllable or word in most cases was
/s/
. One exception was the suffix
-(e)l
, which indicated the masculine gender, as in
warokoel
"our grandfather". Some words are recorded as ending in
x
, which may have represented a word-final
/h/
sound.
In general,
stress
was predictable and fell on the penultimate syllable of a word, unless the word ended in
/e/
,
/i/
or a nasal vowel, in which case it fell on the final syllable.
Grammar
[
edit
]
Taino is not well attested.
[1]
However, from what can be gathered, nouns appear to have had noun-class suffixes, as in other Arawakan languages. Attested Taino possessive prefixes are
da-
'my',
wa-
'our',
li-
'his' (sometimes with a different vowel), and
to-, tu-
'her'.
[5]
Recorded conjugated verbs include
daka
("I am"),
waiba
("we go" or "let us go"),
warik?
("we see"),
kama
("hear", imperative),
ahiyakawo
("speak to us") and
makabuka
("it is not important").
Verb-designating affixes were
a-, ka-, -a, -ka, -nV
in which "V" was an unknown or changeable vowel. This suggests that, like many other Arawakan languages, verbal conjugation for a subject resembled the possessive prefixes on nouns. The negating prefix was
ma-
and the attributive prefix was
ka-
. Hence
makabuka
meant "it is not important". The
buka
element has been compared to the
Kalinago
suffix
-bouca
which designates the past tense. Hence,
makabuka
can be interpreted as meaning "it has no past". However, the word can also be compared to the Kalinago verb
aboucacha
meaning "to scare". This verb is shared in various Caribbean Arawakan languages such as
Lokono
(
bokauya
'to scare, frighten') and
Parauhano
(
apuuta
'to scare'). In this case
makabuka
would mean "it does not frighten [me]".
Masculine gender was indicated by the noun suffix
-(e)l
. There is no known corresponding feminine suffix.
[5]
Vocabulary
[
edit
]
Taino borrowed words from Spanish, adapting them to its phonology. These include
isubara
("sword", from
espada
),
isibuse
("mirror", from
espejo
) and
Dios
(the
Christian God
, from
Dios
).
English words derived from Taino include:
barbecue
,
caiman
,
canoe
,
cassava
,
cay
,
guava
,
hammock
,
hurricane
,
hutia
,
iguana
,
macana
,
maize
,
manatee
,
mangrove
,
maroon
,
potato
,
savanna
, and
tobacco
.
[3]
: 229
Taino loanwords in Spanish include:
aguti
,
aji
,
auyama
,
batata
,
cacique
,
caoba
,
guanabana
,
guaraguao
,
jaiba
,
loro
,
mani
,
maguey
(also rendered
maguey
),
mucaro
,
nigua
,
querequeque
,
tiburon
, and
tuna
,
[6]
as well as the previous English words in their Spanish form:
barbacoa
,
caiman
, canoa, casabe
,
[7]
cayo, guayaba, hamaca, huracan, iguana, jutia, macana
,
[8]
maiz, manati, manglar, cimarron, patata, sabana,
and
tabaco
.
Place names
[
edit
]
Place names of Taino origin include:
[5]
[
failed verification
]
- Bahamas
:
ba-ha-ma
'large-upper-middle'
- Bimini
:
bimini
'twins'
- Boriquen (
Puerto Rico
, also rendered
Boriken
,
Borinquen
):
bor?k?
,
bor?
("native")
-k?
("land") 'native land'
- Caicos
:
ka-i-ko
'nearby northern outlier'
- Cayman Islands
:
kaima
'crocodile' or 'alligator'
- Cuba
:
cu-bao
'great fertile land'
- Haiti
:
ha-yi-ti
'land of mountains'
- Inagua
:
i-na-wa
'small eastern land'
- Jamaica
:
Ya-mah-ye-ka
'great spirit of the land of man'
- Quisqueya
(
Hispaniola
):
kis-ke-ya
'mother of all lands' in Taino language, 'great thing' or 'native land'
Sample sentences
[
edit
]
Six sentences of spoken Taino were preserved. They are presented first in the original orthography in which they were recorded, then in a regularized orthography based on the reconstructed language and lastly in their English translation:
[5]
Original orthography
|
Reconstructed Taino
|
English
|
O cama, guaxeri, guariquen caona yari.
|
O kama, waxeri, warik? kawona yari.
|
O, hear, sir, we see gold jewels.
|
Mayani macana, Juan desquivel daca.
|
Mayani makana, Juan desquivel daka.
|
Do not kill [me], I am
Juan de Esquivel
.
|
Dios naboria daca.
|
Dios naboriya daka.
|
I am God's worker.
|
Ahiacauo, guarocoel.
|
Ahiyakawo, warokoel.
|
Speak [to] us, our grandfather.
|
Guaibba, Cynato machabuca guamechina.
|
Waiba, sinato makabuka wamekina.
|
Let's go, it is not important [that] our master is upset.
|
Techeta cynato guamechina.
|
Teketa sinato wamekina.
|
Our master is greatly irritated.
|
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2012).
The Languages of the Amazon
. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^
Reyes, David (2004).
"The Origin and Survival of the Taino Language"
(PDF)
.
Issues in Caribbean Amerindian Studies
.
5
(2).
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on December 9, 2022
. Retrieved
February 19,
2017
.
An un-official census in 1780 in the town of San German, Puerto Rico revealed a large indigenous population, which was proven by an official census in 1799 that recorded about 2,000 natives in the region.
- ^
a
b
Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel
(1836). "The Haytian or Taino Language".
The American Nations
. Vol. 1. Philadelphia, C. S. Rafinesque. pp. 215?253.
- ^
"Taino Symbol What some symbols mean?"
.
Archived
from the original on 2018-07-05
. Retrieved
2016-08-05
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Granberry, Julian; Vescelius, Gary (2004).
Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles
. The University of Alabama Press.
- ^
Ballew, Dora (2017-10-05).
"The Freaky Mexican Fruit That Can Give You Splinters"
.
OZY
. Archived from
the original
on 2020-01-26
. Retrieved
2020-01-26
.
- ^
"casabe"
.
Diccionario de la lengua espanola
(in Spanish).
Archived
from the original on 2022-11-30
. Retrieved
2019-11-18
.
- ^
"macana"
.
Diccionario de la lengua espanola
(in Spanish).
Archived
from the original on 2023-06-02
. Retrieved
2019-11-18
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Payne D.L., "A classification of Maipuran (Arawakan) languages based on shared lexical retentions", in: Derbyshire D.C., Pullum G.K. (eds.),
Handbook of Amazonian Languages
, vol. 3, Berlin, 1991.
- Derbyshire D.C., "Arawakan languages", in: Bright, William (ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics
, vol. 1, New York, 1992.