Guanche language

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Guanche
Native toSpain (Canary Islands)
RegionCanary Islands
EthnicityGuanches
Extinct17th century[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3gnc
gnc
Glottologguan1277

Guanche is an extinct language that was spoken by the Guanches of the Canary Islands until the 16th or 17th century. It died out after the conquest of the Canary Islands as the Guanche ethnic group was assimilated into the dominant Spanish culture. The Guanche language is known today through sentences and individual words that were recorded by early geographers, as well as through several place-names and some Guanche words that were retained in the Canary Islanders' Spanish.

Classification[]

Guanche has not been classified with any certainty. Many linguists propose that Guanche was likely a Berber language, or at least related to the Berber languages.[2][3][4] However, recognizable Berber words are primarily agricultural or livestock vocabulary, whereas no Berber grammatical inflections have been identified, and there is a large stock of vocabulary that does not bear any resemblance to Berber whatsoever. It may be that Guanche had a stratum of Berber vocabulary but was otherwise unrelated to Berber.[1] Other strong similarities to the Berber languages are reflected in their counting system.

History[]

The name Guanche originally referred to a "man from Tenerife",[5] and only later did it come to refer to all native inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Different dialects of the language were spoken across the archipelago. Archaeological finds on the Canaries include both Libyco-Berber and Punic inscriptions in rock carvings, although early accounts stated the Guanches themselves did not possess a system of writing.

The first reliable account of the Guanche language was provided by the Genovese explorer Nicoloso da Recco in 1341, with a list of the numbers 1–19, possibly from Fuerteventura. Recco's account reveals a base-10 counting system with strong similarities to Berber numbers.

Silbo, originally a whistled form of Guanche speech used for communicating over long distances, was used on La Gomera, El Hierro, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria. As the Guanche language became extinct, a Spanish version of Silbo was adopted by some inhabitants of the Canary Islands.

Numerals[]

Guanche numerals are attested from several sources, not always in good agreement (Barrios 1997). Some of the discrepancies may be due to copy errors, some to gender distinctions, and other to Arabic borrowings in later elicitations.

Number Recco
(1341)
Cairasco
(song, 1582)
Cedeño
(c. 1685)
Marín de Cubas
(1687, 1694)
Sosa
(copy of 1678)
Abreu
(attrib. to 1632)
Reyes
(1995 reconstruction)
Proto-Berber
1 vait* *be ben, ven-ir- becen~been, ben-ir- ben, ben-ir- been (ben?), ben-i- *wên *yiwan
2 smetti, smatta- *smi liin, lin-ir- liin, sin-ir-~lin-ir- lini (sijn) lini, lini- *sîn *sin
3 amelotti, amierat- *amat amiet amiet~amiat, am-ir- amiat (amiet) amiat *amiat *karaḍ
4 acodetti, acodat- *aco arba arba arba arba *akod *hakkuẓ
5 simusetti, simusat- *somus canza~canse canza cansa canza *sumus *sammus
6 sesetti, sesatti- ? sumus sumui~sumus sumus smmous *sed *saḍis
7 satti *set sat sat sat (sá) sat *sa *sah
8 tamatti *tamo set set set set *tam *tam
9 alda-marava,

nait

? acet~acot acot acot acot *aldamoraw *tiẓ(ẓ)ah~tuẓah
10 marava *marago marago marago marago marago *maraw~maragʷ *maraw

* Also nait,' an apparent copy error. Similarly with alda-morana for expected *alda-marava.

Later attestations of 11–19 were formed by linking the digit and ten with -ir: benirmarago, linirmarago, etc. 20–90 were similar, but contracted: linago, amiago, etc. 100 was maraguin, apparently 10 with the Berber plural -en. Recco only recorded 1–16; the combining forms for 11–16, which did not have this -ir-, are included as the hyphenated forms in the table above.

Spanish does not distinguish [b] and [v], so been is consistent with *veen. The Berber feminine ends in -t, as in Shilha 1: yan (m), yat (f); 2: sin (m), snat (f), and this may explain discrepancies such as been and vait for 'one'.

Cairasco is a misparsed counting song, besmia mat acosomuset tamobenir marago. Ses '6' may have got lost in the middle of somuset ( ← *somussesset).

Starting with Cedeño, new roots for '2' and '9' appear ('9' perhaps the old root for '4'), new roots for '4' and '5' (arba, kansa) appear to be Arabic borrowings, and old '5', '6', '7' offset to '6', '7', '8'.

Vocabulary[]

Below are selected Guanche vocabulary items from a 16th-century list by Alonso de Espinosa, as edited and translated by Clements Robert Markham (1907):[6]:xx–xxiv

Guanche English gloss
adara mountain?
afaro grain
aguere lake
ahof milk
ahorer barley meal roasted with butter
amen sun
ana sheep
ara goat
aran farm
ataman sky
axo, xayo deceased; mummy
banot spear
cancha dog
cel moon
chafa lofty mountain ridge
chafaña toasted grain
chamato woman
coran man
coraja red owl
e-c, e-g I (1st person)
era, iera your
guan; ben son
guañac people; state
guaya spirit, life
guijon, guyon ships (-n ‘plural’)
guirre vulture
hacichei beans, vetches
hari multitude, people
jarco mummy
manse shore
mayec mother
morangana strawberries
n-amet bone
o-che melted butter
petut father?
t thou, thy
th they
tabayba Euphorbia
tabona obsidian knife
tagasaste Cytisus proliferus (var.)
taginaste Echium strictum
tamarco coat of skins
tara barley
taraire, tagaire lofty ridge
tea pine tree
teyde peak
xarco shoe
xerax sky
zonfa navel


Below are some additional basic vocabulary words in various Guanche dialects, from Wölfel (1965):[7]

Guanche gloss dialect (island)
guan, cotan man
chamato woman
hari people, multitude Tenerife
doramas nostrils Gran Canaria
adargoma shoulder Gran Canaria
atacaicate heart Gran Canaria
garuaic fist
zonfa navel Tenerife
agoñe bone Tenerife
taber good Palma
tigotan sky Palma
ataman sky, God Tenerife
magec sun Tenerife, Gran Canaria?
ahemon water Hierro
aala(mon) water Gomera, Hierro
ade water Palma
ide fire Tenerife
tacande volcanic field Palma
cancha dog Gran Canaria, Tenerife
garehagua dog Palma

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Maarten Kossmann, Berber subclassification (preliminary version), Leiden (2011)
  2. ^ Richard Hayward, 2000, "Afroasiatic", in Heine & Nurse eds, African Languages, Cambridge University Press
  3. ^ Andrew Dalby, Dictionary of Languages, 1998, p. 88 "Guanche, indigenous language of the Canary Islands, is generally thought to have been a Berber language."
  4. ^ Bynon J., "The contribution of linguistics to history in the field of Berber studies." In: Dalby D, (editor) Language and history in Africa New York: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1970, p 64-77.
  5. ^ "Section 14". The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Encyclopædia Britannica. 1910. pp. 650.
  6. ^ Espinosa, Alonso de; Markham, Clements Robert (ed.). 1907. The Guanches of Tenerife, the holy image of Our Lady of Candelaria, and the Spanish conquest and settlement. (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, second series, 21.) London: Hakluyt Society. 229pp. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  7. ^ Wölfel, Dominik Josef. 1965. Monumenta linguae Canariae: Die kanarischen Sprachdenkmäler. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.

Further reading[]

  • Osorio Acevedo, Francisco. 2003. Gran diccionario guanche: el diccionario de la lengua de los aborígenes canarios. Tenerife: CajaCanarias. ISBN 9788479264253
  • Villarroya, José Luis de Pando. 1996. Diccionario de voces guanches. Toledo: Pando Ediciones.
  • Villarroya, José Luis de Pando. 1987. Diccionario de la lengua Guanche. Madrid: Pando Ediciones.
  • Zyhlarz, Ernst. 1950. Das kanarische Berberisch in seinem sprachgeschichtlichen Milieu. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 100: 403-460.
  • Esteban, José M. 2003. Vocabulario canario guanche. Autores científico-técnicos y académicos 30:119-129.

External links[]

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