Munichi language

Munichi
Spoken in	Peru
Region	Loreto
Extinct	1990s
Language family	unclassified, possibly Arawakan isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3	myr
Location of Munichi

Munichi is a recently extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles or 16 km West of Yurimaguas, Loreto Region, Peru. The last known mother-tongue speaker, Victoria Huancho Icahuate, died in the late 1990s, though some people remain in the village who know a few phrases. In 1988, there were two mother-tongue speakers, but they had not met since the 1970s.

Classification

The language is formally unclassified. However the pronominal suffixes bear a close resemblance to those reconstructed for proto-Arawakan, and there are some other possible cognates. There is no evidence of the language belonging to any known Arawakan language family. There is substantial borrowing from the local variety of Quechua, and to a lesser extent from Spanish, but the majority of vocabulary is not borrowed.

References

• Gibson, Michael L. 1996. El Munichi: Un idioma que se extingue. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 42. Pucallpa: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Available here.

External links

• Entry for Munichi at Rosetta Project (not working)