Duit is an extinct
Chibcha language
Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/), or Muysca de Bogotá, was a language spoken by the Muisca people of the Muisca Confederation, one of the many indigenous cultures of the Americas. The Muisca inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyace ...
, which had been spoken by the
Muisca
The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...
of present-day
Boyacá,
Colombia. The language appears in the modern name of the pre-Columbian settlement and last ruler
Tundama
Tundama or Saymoso (15th century - Duitama, late December 1539) was a '' cacique'' of the Muisca Confederation, a loose confederation of different rulers of the Muisca who inhabited the central highlands ( Altiplano Cundiboyacense) of the C ...
;
Duitama
Duitama () is a city and municipality in the department of Boyacá. It is the capital of the Tundama Province. Duitama is located northeast of Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia and northeast of Tunja, the capital Boyacá. Duitama has ex ...
.
[Biography Cacique Tundama]
- Pueblos Originarios
Description
The language is only known from one fragment analysed by
scholar
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...
Ezequiel Uricoechea in 1871. The linguist mentioned that the analysed text was part of a larger work that hitherto has not been found. From the short text it was clear that the Duit language differed slightly from the main version of Chibcha, Muysccubun, spoken by the Muisca on the
Altiplano Cundiboyacense
The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alt ...
.
As the Muisca did not have a script, only for their
numerals
A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to:
* Numeral system used in mathematics
* Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English)
* Numerical d ...
, written Duit language texts do not exist.
[Izquierdo Peña, 2009]
Comparison to Muysccubun and numerals
See also
*
Comparison of Muysccubun with other Chibchan languages
References
Bibliography
*
{{Muisca navbox, Topics
Languages of Colombia
Chibchan languages
Duitama
Extinct languages of South America