Quinigua is an

extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...

that was spoken in northeastern

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Quinigua was spoken between the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Sierra Tamaulipa la Nueva, and between the Rio Grande and the Rio del Pilón Grande. It has no apparent relatives and remains unclassified.

Classification

Gursky (1964) notes that Quinigua is highly different from its neighbors such as

Coahuilteco Coahuilteco was one of the Pakawan languages that was spoken in southern Texas (United States) and northeastern Coahuila (Mexico). It is now extinct. Classification Coahuilteco was grouped in an eponymous Coahuiltecan family by John Wesley Po ...

, but observes some limited similarities with "

Hokan 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 ...

Coahuiltecan The Coahuiltecan were various small, autonomous bands of Native Americans who inhabited the Rio Grande valley in what is now southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. The various Coahuiltecan groups were hunter-gatherers. First encountered by Europ ...

languages" such as Comecrudan and

Yuman The Quechan (or Yuma) (Quechan: ''Kwatsáan'' 'those who descended') are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite th ...

languages.

Vocabulary

A vocabulary list of Quinigua is documented in del Hoyo (1960).del Hoyo, Eugenio. 1960. ''Vocablos de la Lengua Quinigua de los Indios Borrados del Noreste de México''. Anuario del Centro de Estudios Humanisticos, Universidad de Nuevo León 1. 489-515. Gursky (1964) has selected and retranscribed some of del Hoyo's (1960) vocabulary, reproduced below. :

References

{{North American languages Unclassified languages of North America Indigenous languages of Mexico Extinct languages of North America