Monqui language
| Monqui | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Mexico |
| Region | Baja California Sur |
| Ethnicity | Monqui |
| Extinct | (date missing) |
Yuman–Cochimí ?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | monq1236 |
 | |
The Monqui language is an extinct language formerly spoken in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. Of it, only 14 place names and one sentence survive and the characteristics and relationships of Monqui to other languages cannot be determined with any precision.[1] William C. Massey (1949) believed that the Monqui spoke a Cochimí language or dialect. Cochimi is remotely related to the Yuman languages spoken in the northern part of the Baja California peninsula. A recent reassessment of the historical evidence suggests instead that the Monqui language was distinctive and non-Cochimí, possibly related to that of the Guaycura to the south.
The Baja California peninsula is a geographic cul-de-sac and the languages in the southernmost part of the peninsula (Pericu, Guaycura and, possibly, Monqui) have no known relatives. Some linguists have speculated that these people and languages date back thousands of years and that they may be the direct descendants of the earliest inhabitants in the Americas. This speculation is reinforced by their physical characteristic of dolichocephalic crania (longheadedness) which is unusual among present-day American Indians.[2]
Despite Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino's chronicles about missionaries' skills to spoken Monqui and no mentions about isolation to Cochimí,[1] expelled Jesuit missionary Francis Bennon Ducrue also claimed in a letter links between Laymon (Cochimí) and Monqui but spoken "with a significant difference just from second and third mission" to the north in whole Baja California peninsula from San Javier Mission and the confirmation of missionaries' uncare to make some dictionary for Cochimí due they ever wanted create an universal one.[clarification needed] The next mission from the south is Mission Loreto, present-day the only one on the ancient Monqui territory and thus, strong evidence of this language as a Cochimí dialect.[3][4]
The sentence is as follows:[5]
Taxama
taxama/tasama
throw
conit
ko-ni-t
?-not(?)-PERF(?)
mulas
mulas
mulas
huala
wala
DEM(?)
endetcu
endetku
boys
'the mules have not thrown the boys'
References
[edit]- ^ a b Laylander, Don. (1997), "The linguistic prehistory of Baja California". In Contributions to the Linguistic Prehistory of Central and Baja California, edited by Gary S. Breschini and Trudy Haversat, Salinas, California: Coyote Press, pp. 79-80, 33
- ^ Golla, Victor (2011), California Indian Languages, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 125, 239-240
- ^ León-Portilla, Miguel (1985). "Ejemplos de lengua califórnica, cochimí —reunidos por Franz B.Ducrues (1778-1779)—". Tlalocan. 10: 374. doi:10.19130/iifl.tlalocan.1985.113. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
- ^ Shaul, Leedom David (2024). The Cochimian languages. LINCOM studies in native American linguistics. München: LINCOM GmbH. ISBN 978-3-96939-185-3.
- ^ Shaul, David Leedom (2020-10-01). "Baja California Languages: Description and Linguistic Prehistory".
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