The Timotean languages were spoken in the
Venezuelan Andes
The Venezuelan Andes (Spanish: ''Andes Venezolanos'') also simply known as the Andes (Spanish: ''Los Andes'') in Venezuela, are a mountain system that form the northernmost extension of the Andes. They are fully identified, both by their geologi ...
around what is now
Mérida. It is assumed that they are extinct. However, Timote may survive in the so-far unattested
Mutú (Loco) language, as this occupies a mountain village (Mutús) within the old Timote state.
[Willem Adelaar with Pieter Muysken, ''The Languages of the Andes'', CUP, 2004:124–125]
Genetic relations
There is no apparent connection to the Chibchan, Arawakan, or Cariban families, apart from sporadic resemblances with
Paez and some divergent Chibchan languages, so Timotean appears to be an independent family.
Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with the
Jirajaran languages
The Jirajaran languages are group of extinct languages once spoken in western Venezuela in the regions of Falcón and Lara. All of the Jirajaran languages appear to have become extinct in the early 20th century.
Languages
Based on adequate docu ...
.
Languages
There were two closely related languages, each a pair of dialects:
*
Timote–Cuica (Miguri, Cuica, "Cicua", spoken by the
Timoto–Cuica people
Timoto–Cuica people were an indigenous people of the Americas composed primarily of two large tribes, the Timote and the Cuica, that inhabited in the Andes region of Western Venezuela.Mahoney 89 They were closely related to the Muisca people of ...
)
*
Mucuchí–Maripú (Mocochí, Mirripú)
Traditionally, Mucuchí and Mirripú have been classified as dialects of Timote, with Cuica as a distinct language, but the data in Loukotka (1968)
indicates that Cuica is a dialect of Timote, and that Mucuchí–Mirripú are a separate language (Kaufman 2007; Campbell 1997, 2012).
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Timotean languages.
:
References
External links
* Fabre
Mutús
{{South American languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Extinct languages of South America
Languages of Venezuela
Language families