Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language that was spoken by the

Taíno The Taíno were a historic Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, indigenous people of the Caribbean whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendant communities and Taíno revivalist communities. At the time of European contact in the ...

people of the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. 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 The Lesser Antilles ( es, link=no, Antillas Menores; french: link=no, Petites Antilles; pap, Antias Menor; nl, Kleine Antillen) are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc betwe ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

, the

Turks and Caicos Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and n ...

, and most of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

, 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 The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, 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 the Caribbean until the late 19th century. As the first indigenous language encountered by Europeans in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

, it was a major source of new words borrowed into European languages.

Dialects

Granberry & Vescelius (2004) distinguish two dialects, one on Hispaniola and further east, and the other on Hispaniola and further west. * Classic (Eastern) Taíno, spoken in Classic Taíno and Eastern Taíno cultural areas. These were the Lesser Antilles north of Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, central Hispaniola, and the Turks & Caicos (from an expansion in ca. 1200). Classic Taíno was expanding into eastern and even central Cuba at the time of the Spanish Conquest, perhaps from people fleeing the Spanish in Hispaniola. * Ciboney (Western) Taíno, spoken in

Ciboney 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 Classi ...

and Lucayan cultural areas. These were most of Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and the Bahamas. Columbus wrote that "...from Bahama to Cuba, Boriquen to Jamaica, the same language was spoken in various slight dialects, but understood by all."

Phonology

The Taíno language was not written. The Taínos used

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s, but there has been little research in the area. The following phonemes are reconstructed from Spanish records: There was also a flap , which appears to have been an allophone of . A distinction between and is suggested by Spanish transcriptions of ''e'' vs ''ei/ey'', as in ''ceiba'' "ceiba". The is written ''ei'' or final ''é'' in modern reconstructions. There was also a high back vowel , which was often interchangeable with and may have been an allophone. There was a parallel set of

nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...

s. The only consonant at the end of a syllable or of a word was .

Grammar

Taíno is not well attested. However, from what can be gathered, nouns appear to have had noun-class suffixes, as in other Arawakan languages. Attested Taíno possessive prefixes are ''da-'' 'my', ''wa-'' 'our', ''li-'' 'his' (sometimes with a different vowel), and ''to-, tu-'' 'her'. Verb-designating affixes are ''a-, ka-, -a, -ka, -nV'' in which "V" is an unknown or changeable vowel. This suggests that, like many other Arawakan languages, verbal conjugation for a subject resembled the possessive prefixes on nouns. The negation prefix is ''ma-'' meanwhile the attributive prefix is ''ka-'' as in ''makabuka'' "it is not important" or "not important". This has been compared to Kalinago's ''-bouca'' suffix which designates the past tense. Hence, the sentence can be interpreted as meaning "without a past." However, ''makabuka'' could also be compared to Kalinago's ''aboúcacha'' 'to scare'. This verb is shared in various Caribbean Arawakan languages such as Lokono (''bokaüya'' 'to scare, frighten') and Parauhano (''apüüta'' 'to scare'). Some conjugated verbs include ''Daka'' (I am), ''Waiba'' (We go), ''Warike'' (We see) Attested object suffix includes ''-wo'' (we, us) as in ''ahiyawoka'' ("speak to us").

Vocabulary

English words derived from Taíno include: '' barbecue'', ''

caiman A caiman (also cayman as a variant spelling) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico, Central and South America f ...

'', ''canoe'', ''

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively ...

'', ''

cay A cay ( ), also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, including in the Caribbean and on the Great ...

'', ''guava'', ''hammock'', ''hurricane'', ''

hutia Hutias (known in Spanish as jutía) are moderately large cavy-like rodents of the subfamily Capromyinae that inhabit the Caribbean islands, with most species restricted to Cuba and Hispaniola. Twenty species of hutia have been identified, but at ...

'', ''iguana'', ''

macana The term macana, of Taíno origin, refers to various wooden weapons used by the various native cultures of Central and South America. The earliest meaning attributed to ''macana'' is a sword-like weapon made out of wood, but still sharp enough t ...

'', ''

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

'', ''manatee'', ''

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

'', '' maroon'', ''potato'', ''

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

'', and ''

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

''. Taíno loanwords in Spanish include: '' agutí'', ''ají'', ''auyama'', ''batata'', ''

cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...

'', ''caoba'', ''guanabana'', ''

guaraguao Guaraguao (''Barrio Guaraguao'') is one of the 31 barrios in the municipality of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Along with Anón, Coto Laurel, Marueño, Quebrada Limón, Real, and San Patricio, and the coastal barrios of Canas and Capitanejo, Guaragu ...

'', ''jaiba'', ''loro'', ''maní'', ''maguey'' (also rendered ''magüey''), '' múcaro'', ''nigua'', '' querequequé'', ''

tiburón Tiburon (Spanish ''Tiburón'', "shark") may refer to: Places ;United States * Tiburon, California * Tiburón Golf Club Naples, Florida * Tiburon Peninsula (California), a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area of California ;Mexico * Tiburón Is ...

'', and ''tuna'', as well as the previous English words in their Spanish form: ''

barbacoa Barbacoa () is a form of cooking meat that originated in the Caribbean with the Taíno people, who called it by the Arawak word ''barbaca'', from which the term "barbacoa" derives, and ultimately, the word ' barbecue". In contemporary Mexico, i ...

, caimán, canoa, casabe'', ''cayo, guayaba, hamaca, huracán, iguana, jutía, macana'', ''maíz, manatí, manglar, cimarrón, patata, sabana,'' and ''tabaco''.

Place names

Place names of Taíno origin include: *

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

: ''ha-yi-ti'' 'land of mountains' * Quisqueya (

): ''kis-ke-ya'' 'great thing' or 'native land' *

: ''ba-ha-ma'' 'large-upper-middle' *

Bimini Bimini is the westernmost district of the Bahamas and comprises a chain of islands located about due east of Miami. Bimini is the closest point in the Bahamas to the mainland United States and approximately west-northwest of Nassau. The popula ...

: ''bimini'' 'twins' *

Inagua Inagua is the southernmost district of the Bahamas, comprising the islands of Great Inagua and Little Inagua. The headquarters for the district council are in Matthew Town. History The original settlers were the Lucayan people, who arrived som ...

: ''i-na-wa'' 'small eastern land' *

Caicos The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and no ...

: ''ka-i-ko'' 'near-northern-outlier' * Boriquén (

, also rendered ''Borikén'', ''Borinquen''): ''borīkē'', ''borī'' ("native") ''-kē'' ("land") 'native land' *

: ''Ya-mah-ye-ka'' 'great spirit of the land of man' *

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...

: ''cai-man'' 'crocodile' or 'alligator' *

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

: ''cu-bao'' 'great fertile land'

References

Bibliography

* Payne D.L., "A classification of Maipuran (Arawakan) languages based on shared lexical retentions", in: Derbyshire D.C., Pullum G.K. (eds.), ''Handbook of Amazonian Languages'', vol. 3, Berlin, 1991. * Derbyshire D.C., "Arawakan languages", in: Bright, William (ed.), ''International Encyclopedia of Linguistics'', vol. 1, New York, 1992. {{DEFAULTSORT:Taino Language Arawakan languages Indigenous languages of the Caribbean Extinct languages of North America Languages of the Bahamas Languages of Cuba Languages of Haiti Languages of the Dominican Republic Languages of the Turks and Caicos Islands Languages of Jamaica Languages of Puerto Rico Languages of the United States Virgin Islands Languages of the British Virgin Islands Languages of Saint Kitts and Nevis Languages of Anguilla Languages of Saint Martin (island) Languages of Antigua and Barbuda Languages of Montserrat Languages extinct in the 16th century Indigenous languages of the United States