Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language that was spoken by the

Taíno The Taíno were a historic 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 late 15th century, they were the pri ...

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 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 bet ...

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 ...

, 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 t ...

, 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 North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archi ...

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 Hispan ...

, 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. ...

, 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 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 vowels. 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 Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke ...

'', ''

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 Ameri ...

'', ''canoe'', ''

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', 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 cultivated a ...

'', '' cay'', ''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'', ''

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. ...

'', ''manatee'', ''

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal 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 evolution in several ...

'', ''

maroon Maroon ( US/ UK , Australia ) is a brownish crimson color that takes its name from the French word ''marron'', or chestnut. "Marron" is also one of the French translations for "brown". According to multiple dictionaries, there are var ...

'', ''potato'', '' savanna'', 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 ch ...

''. 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 ...

'', ''caoba'', ''guanabana'', '' guaraguao'', ''jaiba'', ''loro'', ''maní'', ''maguey'' (also rendered ''magüey''), '' múcaro'', ''nigua'', '' querequequé'', '' tiburón'', and ''tuna'', as well as the previous English words in their Spanish form: '' barbacoa, 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'' 'twins' * Inagua: ''i-na-wa'' 'small eastern land' * Caicos: ''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: ''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