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Pre-Arawakan Languages Of The Greater Antilles
Several languages of the Greater Antilles, specifically in Cuba and Hispaniola, appear to have preceded the Arawakan Taíno. Almost nothing is known of them, though a couple recorded words, along with a few toponyms, suggest they were not Arawakan or Cariban, the families of the attested languages of the Antilles. Three languages are recorded: Guanahatabey, Macoris (or Macorix, apparently in two dialects), and Ciguayo. Languages There were three pre-Arawakan populations at the time of the Spanish Conquest, and they were extinct within a century. These were * the Guanahatabey of western Cuba (sometimes confused with the Arawakan Ciboney), * the Macorix (Mazorij) in two populations: the Pedernales Peninsula and northeastern Hispaniola (modern Dominican Republic), and * the Ciguayo (Siwayo) of northeastern Hispaniola (Samaná Peninsula). They were evidently completely mutually unintelligible with Taíno. Ciguayo and Macorix were apparently moribund when chronicler De las Casas a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ciboney People
The Ciboney, or Siboney, were a Taíno people of western Cuba, Jamaica, and the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti. A Western Taíno group living in central Cuba during the 15th and 16th centuries, they had a dialect and culture distinct from the Classic Taíno in the eastern part of the island, though much of the Ciboney territory was under the control of the eastern chiefs. Confusion in the historical sources led 20th-century scholars to apply the name "Ciboney" to the non-Taíno Guanahatabey of western Cuba and various archaic cultures around the Caribbean, but this is deprecated. History At the time of Spanish colonization, the Ciboney were the most populous group in Cuba. They inhabited the central part of the island, between western Pinar del Río Province and eastern Oriente Province. Bartolomé de las Casas, who lived among the Ciboney in the early 16th century, related that their dialect and culture was similar to that of the Lucayans of the present-day Bahamas.Granberry and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taíno Language
Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language that was spoken by the Taíno people of the Caribbean. At the time of Spanish contact, it was the most common language throughout the Caribbean. Classic Taíno (Taíno proper) was the native language of the Taíno 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 Taíno, and was spoken in the westernmost areas of Hispaniola, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and most of Cuba. By the late 15th century, Taíno had displaced earlier languages, except in western Cuba and pockets in Hispaniola. As the Taíno 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, but possibly continued to be spoken in isolated pockets in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hokan Languages
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California. Etymology The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan languages: ''*xwak'' in Proto-Yuman, ''c-oocj'' (pronounced ) in Seri, ''ha'k'' in Achumawi, etc. History of the proposal In the first half-century after the "Hokan hypothesis" was first proposed by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber, and further elaborated by Edward Sapir, little additional evidence was found that these families were related to each other. But since about 1950, increased efforts to document Hokan languages and to establish sound correspondences in proposed lexical resemblance sets have added weight to the Hokan hypothesis, leading to its acceptance by many specialists in the languages of California, Oregon, and Mesoamerica. However, some skepticism remains among scholars. The Yurumanguí language of Colombia was cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Salvador Island
San Salvador Island (known as Watling's Island from the 1680s until 1925) is an island and district of The Bahamas. It is widely believed that during Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World, this island was the first land he sighted and visited on 12 October 1492. He named it ''San Salvador'' after Christ the Saviour. Columbus's records indicate that the native Lucayan inhabitants of the territory, who called their island Guanahaní, were "sweet and gentle". History When he made landfall on the small island of San Salvador in October 1492, Columbus thought he had reached the East Indies, which was precisely his quest: to find an all-water route to the Orient so that European traders of precious spices could maximise their profits by cutting out Muslim middlemen. Additionally and more specifically, he was working on behalf of the Spanish to surpass the Portuguese, who had established trade routes around the Horn of Africa, a trans-Atlantic route being presume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guanahani
Guanahaní is an island in the Bahamas that was the first land in the New World sighted and visited by Christopher Columbus' first voyage, on 12 October 1492. It is a bean-shaped island that Columbus changed from its native Taíno name to San Salvador. Guanahaní has traditionally been identified with Watlings Island, which was officially renamed San Salvador Island in 1925 as a result, but modern scholars are divided on the accuracy of this identification and several alternative candidates in and around the southern Bahamas have been proposed as well. Primary sources Letter from Columbus himself Upon his return to Spain in the spring of 1493, Columbus wrote a letter to Luis de Santangel, one of his patrons at the Royal Court of Castile. The letter was printed widely and translated into many languages, spreading the news of the discovery throughout Europe. In the letter, Columbus mentions ''Guanahani'' as the name of the first island he discovered, but provides no other deta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length. It was common in Europe and Latin America, but is no longer an official unit in any nation. Derived from an ancient Celtic unit and adopted by the Romans as the ''leuga'', the league became a common unit of measurement throughout western Europe. It may have originally represented, roughly, the distance a person could walk in an hour. Since the Middle Ages, many values have been specified in several countries. Different definitions Ancient Rome The league was used in Ancient Rome, defined as 1½ Roman miles (7,500 Roman feet, modern 2.2 km or 1.4 miles). The origin is the ''leuga Gallica'' ''(also: leuca Callica)'', the league of Gaul. Argentina The Argentine league (''legua'') is or 6,666 ''varas'': 1 ''vara'' is . English-speaking world On land, the league is most commonly defined as three miles (4.83km), though the length of a mile could vary from place to place and depending on the era. At sea, a league is . English usage also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moribund Language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead language". If no one can speak the language at all, it becomes an "extinct language". A dead language may still be studied through recordings or writings, but it is still dead or extinct unless there are fluent speakers. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, they are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of globalization, imperialism, neocolonialism and linguicide (language killing). Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language associated with social or economic power or spoken more widely, the ultimate result being language death. The general consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samaná Province
Samaná () is a Provinces of the Dominican Republic, province of the Dominican Republic in the Samaná Peninsula located in the eastern region. Its Capital (political), capital is Samaná (town), Santa Bárbara de Samaná, usually known as Samaná. The province is on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the northeastern part of the Dominican Republic. It is known for the mountains of which it is almost entirely formed. Samaná has numerous beaches. Samana was originally larger covering the area of what is now the María Trinidad Sánchez Province, María Trinidad Sánchez province, before being divided during the Rafael Trujillo, Trujillo era. Geography The Samana province is occupied by the Sierra de Samaná mountain range, which reaches many of the coastal areas. The highest mountain in this range (and in the province) is located in the eastern portion and is called La Meseta. Samana has a tropical rainforest climate, with an annual average temperature of 25.9 degrees Celsius. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ciguayo
At the time of first contact between Europe and the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean included the Taíno of the northern Lesser Antilles, most of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguayo and Macorix of parts of Hispaniola, and the Guanahatabey of western Cuba. The Kalinago have maintained an identity as an indigenous people, with a reserved territory in Dominica. Introduction Some scholars consider it important to distinguish the Taíno from the neo-Taíno nations of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola, and the Lucayan of the Bahamas and Jamaica. Linguistically or culturally these differences extended from various cognates or types of canoe: canoa, piragua, cayuco to distinct languages. Languages diverged even over short distances. Previously these groups often had distinctly non-Taíno deities such as the goddess Jagua, strangely enough the god Teju Jagua is a major demon of indigenous Paraguayan mythology. Still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedernales Province
Pedernales (; ) is the southernmost province of the Dominican Republic, including the offshore island of Isla Beata. It was split from Barahona in 1957. Of its 2,074.53 km2, 1374 km2 belong to the Jaragua National Park. A third of its population is of Haitian origin, the highest ratio within the country. The capital of the province, Pedernales, was originally called Juan López, who was a Spanish inhabitant who had settled in the area around the 19th century. The province was called Pedernales after the river located on the border with Haiti, in which flint is abundant. The indigenous people of the Dominican Republic, the Taíno, used them to make sharp tools, such as axes and arrowheads. Geography The province of Pedernales is located in the southwest of the Dominican Republic, sharing its borders with the neighboring Haiti. It is located 330 km (kilometers) from Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. It is part of the region called Enriquillo, and it is the se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macorix People
At the time of first contact between Europe and the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean included the Taíno of the northern Lesser Antilles, most of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguayo and Macorix of parts of Hispaniola, and the Guanahatabey of western Cuba. The Kalinago have maintained an identity as an indigenous people, with a reserved territory in Dominica. Introduction Some scholars consider it important to distinguish the Taíno from the neo-Taíno nations of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola, and the Lucayan of the Bahamas and Jamaica. Linguistically or culturally these differences extended from various cognates or types of canoe: canoa, piragua, cayuco to distinct languages. Languages diverged even over short distances. Previously these groups often had distinctly non-Taíno deities such as the goddess Jagua, strangely enough the god Teju Jagua is a major demon of indigenous Paraguayan mythology. Sti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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