Adelaar Willem, Muysken Pieter. The languages of the Andes

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124 2 The Chibcha Sphere

‘seven’, meki:sal



‘eight’, meki:e:tasal



‘nine’,

lo: ‘ten’ (Celed´on 1878; Jusay´u

and Olza 1988). In multiples of ten hiki:, rather than po

lo:,isused. The multiplier

precedes hiki:,asinpienˇci hiki: ‘forty’. When added to tens, units receive the allative

marker -m



in and follow po

lo: or hiki:. Numerals may take gender afﬁxes. They precede

the noun they modify.

2.13 Timote–Cuica

At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, the area of the present-day Venezuelan high

mountain states of M´erida and Trujillo was inhabited by relatively highly developed

agriculturalists, who were speakers of the Timote–Cuica language family. They produced

adiversity of cultivated plants, such as maize, potatoes and cotton on agricultural terraces

situated on the high Andean slopes. The chronicler Juan de Castellanos (1589) described

some of the customs and religious practices of these people in his Eleg´ıas de Varones

Ilustres de Indias (Part II: Eleg´ıa III) in an account of the conquest of the Trujillo

area. The area was ﬁrst penetrated by Spaniards in 1548, and the main city M´erida was

founded in 1558 (Wagner 1967). According to tradition, the Cuica people of the Trujillo

region received the newcomers peacefully, in contrast with the more warlike Timote,

who inhabited the area of M´erida.

There is no certainty about the question whether Timote and Cuica were different

languages or dialects of one language. In view of the geographic situation some local

variation could be expected. Cuica was spoken in the Andes from Humocaro in the

state of Lara to Jaj´oatthe Trujillo–M´erida state border. In the southeast it included the

area of Bocon´o and Niquitao, and in the northwest it included the area west of Valera

(Betijoque, Escuque), not far from Lake Maracaibo. The Timote language occupied the

central valley of the Motat´an and Chama rivers from the town of Timotes to the area

of La Grita in T´achira state. In the northwest Timote place names can be found on the

slopes descending towards Lake Maracaibo (Mucujepe, Torondoy). South of M´erida,

the Timote area included the area of Mucutuy and Mucuchach´ı.

After the Spanish occupation, the remaining Indian population was concentrated in

a number of special villages. Their descendants have survived until today, but their

languages were gradually lost until they became extinct at some moment in the ﬁrst half

of the twentieth century. Most of the information on the Timote and Cuica languages

wasgathered by local scholars, such as Tulio Febr´es Cordero, Am´ılcar Fonseca and

Jos´e Ignacio Lares at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was brought together

and discussed in an insightful article by Rivet (1927). Jahn (1927) provides ample

anthropological data on the area, including more word lists. Some of Jahn’s vocabulary

and sentences correspond quite closely to Fonseca’s Cuica examples, reproduced in Rivet

Mosonyi and Mosonyi (2000) have akaratˇsi ‘seven’, mek:isat ‘eight’, meki

etsat ‘nine’.

2.13 Timote–Cuica 125

(1927). Jahn (1927: 326), however, identiﬁes his own data as Timote, insisting that Cuica

and Timote were in fact one language.

Although the Timote and Cuica languages are considered extinct, information dated

1977 (from Merrill Seely) that has appeared in recent editions of the Ethnologue (e.g.

Grimes 1996) refers to a language allegedly spoken in the locality of Mut´us above

Pueblo Llano in the state of Barinas. Pueblo Llano is a high mountain town, situated in

the state of M´erida (not Barinas), off the M´erida–Barinas road. The matter calls for urgent

action because an indigenous language preserved in that area would almost certainly be

avariety of Timote, originally the dominant speech in the region. The word Mut´us is

reminiscent of the preﬁxed root Mucu,acharacteristic element of Timote toponymy (e.g.

Mucuch´ıes, Mucubaj´ı, Mucurub´a, Mucuj´un, etc.). It may have been a word for ‘people’,

‘community’ or ‘village’, and it is so frequent that a well-known Venezuelan scholar,

Julio C. Salas, saw it as a suitable replacement for the name Timote (Rivet 1927: 140).

Even though the Timote and Cuica materials are very limited and mainly lexical in

nature, a thorough analysis of what is available and a comparison with other languages

of the area could be rewarding. At ﬁrst sight, there is no similarity whatsoever with the

surrounding Arawakan, Cariban and Chibchan languages. Rivet attempted to compare

Timote and Cuica vocabulary items with P´aez and a series of highly divergent languages

of the Chibchan family. Some interesting lexical similarities emerge, but no overall

picture. Rivet (1927: 148) himself emphasises that Timote–Cuica must be considered to

be an independent family. Rivet also traced some of the morphological characteristics

of Timote and Cuica. A striking feature of these languages is the existence of a set of

preﬁxes that seem to convey gender and number distinctions. These preﬁxes appear to

function in an agreement system. Consider the following examples from Mucuch´ı and

Mirrip´uTimote.

(170) mi-sn´un mi-ndok

CL-woman CL-old

‘old woman’

(Rivet 1927: 144)

The preﬁx mi-isinterpreted by Rivet as a generic or collective preﬁx. The form

mi-sn´un can be compared to ˇcu-sn´u ‘woman’. The latter form contains a preﬁx ˇcu-,

which may have an individualising function since it is opposed to ti- ‘plural’.

(171) ˇcu-sep

CL-Spaniard

‘a Spaniard’

(Rivet 1927: 145)

(172) ti-sep

PL-Spaniard

‘the Spaniards’

(Rivet 1927: 144)

126 2 The Chibcha Sphere

According to Rivet, the Cuica preﬁxes kas- and kus- (less frequently ka- and ku-) are

used for masculine and feminine human beings, respectively. Jahn (1927: 403) interprets

the preﬁx kus-/ku- as a ﬁrst-person possessive preﬁx ‘my’, and ka-asasecond-person

possessive preﬁx. This interpretation is problematic, considering that an ‘I’ and ih ‘you’

(see below) can also function as possessive markers. A possible solution could be that

the use of ka(s)- and ku(s)- as possessive markers may have been limited to (human)

relatives. The Cuica data appear to contain evidence both for a gender, and a possessive

interpretation.

(173) kas-taita kus-man

MS/2P-father FE/1P-mother

‘the father’ (or ‘your father’) ‘the mother’ (or ‘my mother’)

(Rivet 1927: 145)

(174) ka-ˇsik ku-ˇsik

MS/2P-sibling FE/1P-sibling

‘brother’ (or ‘your sibling’) ‘sister’ (or ‘my sibling’)

(Rivet 1927: 145)

Double marking or repetition of (the same) preﬁxes is not unusual, as can be seen in

(175).

(175) kus-ku-ˇsik

FE/1P-FE/1P-sibling

‘the sister’ (or ‘my sister’)

(Rivet 1927: 145)

An extremely frequent nominal preﬁx in Cuica is kiu-. It also occurs as ki-, in par-

ticular before k or h followed by a rounded vowel, and as kiuk-. It may be related to a

demonstrative kiu in Timote. Interestingly, kiu(k)- is sometimes found with borrowed

roots (Rivet 1927: 144–5, 147).

(176) kiu-pa ‘road’

ki-hutn, kiu-hutn ‘dog’

kiu-misa ‘table’

[Spanish mesa]

kiuk-mis ‘cat’ [old Spanish miche]

Sufﬁxes are less frequent than preﬁxes. Rivet found a diminutive sufﬁx -is and an

augmentative -ˇc in Cuica.

(177) kˇcu-is

bird-DI

‘small bird’

(Rivet 1927: 146)

2.13 Timote–Cuica 127

(178) kiak-ˇc

Indian-AU

‘tall Indian’

(Rivet 1927: 147)

Rivet identiﬁed the personal pronouns an and ih for ﬁrst and second person, respec-

tively. These elements can precede a noun in order to identify its possessor. Example

(179) is from Mucuch´ıTimote, (180)–(182) are from Cuica.

(179) an koip´u

I hat

‘my hat’

(Rivet 1927: 146)

(180) an kamo heu euntz

Iﬁve be child

‘I have got ﬁve children.’

(Rivet 1927: 146)

(181) ih kiu-tsaos

you CL-corncob

‘your corncobs’

(Rivet 1927: 146)

(182) ma-p´e ti-t-kinak ih eunts heup

how.many-IR PL-PL-son you child be

‘How many children do you have?’

(Rivet 1927: 146)

Verbal morphology is poorly represented in the data. It appears to be rudimentary.

One of the few clear cases is an imperative preﬁx ma-. The element ok in (184) has

been interpreted as a third-person pronoun (Jahn 1927: 403). It may also have had an

aspectual function. Example (183) is from Mucuch´ıTimote, (184) from Cuica.

(183) ma-fam ˇsumpi´u

IM-bring water

‘Bring water!’

(Rivet 1927: 146)

(184) ku-ˇsik ok na kfok

FE/1P-sibling he/she sweep house

‘My sister sweeps the house.’

(Rivet 1927: 145)

Word order in Cuica and Timote appears to be SVO, as could be seen in (184) and in

the example (185) from Mucuch´ıTimote.

The translation of this example is plural, even though ‘corncobs’ has more expectedly also been

recorded as ti-tsaos.

A difference in use between heu and heup (‘there is’) could not be derived from the examples.

128 2 The Chibcha Sphere

(185) mi-n-gu´e tikas´e tis-kainak

[ku´e ‘hawk’; Spanish gallina ‘hen’]

CL-EU(?)-hawk seize PL-hen

‘The hawk seized the hens.’

(Rivet 1927: 144)

Oblique case relations are indicated by means of prepositions, some of which are also

used adverbially. The use of (u)du in (186) and in (187) illustrates this. Example (187)

is from Cuica; (186) may be Cuica as well (see above the remark on Jahn’s data).

(186) an niˇs´ıduk(u)-ˇsund´ok

Ilive with FE/1P-wife

‘I live with my wife.’

(Jahn 1927: 408)

(187) ti-kˇsoi teuk udu

PL-youngster go together

‘The boys go together.’

(Rivet 1927: 144)

Adjectives can either follow or precede the noun they modify; the former option

appears to be the more usual one, as the following Cuica examples show.

(188) kiu-hutn toi

CL-dog fat

‘the fat dog’

(Rivet 1927: 147)

(189) nisisi ku-neu ksoy

beautiful FE-girl youngster

‘a beautiful girl’

(Rivet 1927: 148)

The materials are quite explicit for as far as numerals are concerned. The system is

decimal. From six on, the number names are morphologically composed: ‘one’ kar´ı;

‘two’ xem ∼ xen; ‘three’ ˇsut ∼ sut ∼ hisxut (Timote), ˇsuent (Cuica); ‘four’ pit (Timote),

pit´ı (Cuica); ‘ﬁve’ kab´o ∼ kabok (Timote), kam´o (Cuica); ‘six’ kasum ∼ kaks´un ∼ kaps´un

(Timote), katseunt (Cuica); ‘seven’ mai-xem ∼ mai-x´en (Timote), ma-en (Cuica); ‘eight’

mai-xut ∼ mai-sxut (Timote), mabi-ˇsuent (Cuica); ‘nine’ mai-pit (Timote), mabi-pita

(Cuica); ‘ten’ tab´ıs. Multipliers precede the tens; units follow the tens, e.g. hisxut tab´ıs

‘thirty’, tab´ıs hisxut ‘thirteen’. Numerals precede the nouns they modify.

From a phonological point of view the languages are remarkable for their word-

initial consonant clusters, e.g. in (Cuica) trindu ‘ﬂower’, (Cuica) kˇcu ‘bird’, (Cuica)

stots ‘blood’, (Timote) klef ‘rainy season’. This phenomenon is more conspicuous in

Cuica than in Timote. Loan words from Spanish, often heavily transformed, are found

in both languages; e.g. Timote ti-fuix ∼ ˇcu-fu´es ‘green peas’ (Spanish arveja), Cuica kiu-

trik´u ∼ kiu-trik ‘wheat’ (Spanish trigo). An interesting word which suggests a borrowing

The preﬁx tis-isavariant of ti- ‘plural’ (possibly a double marker).

Fat puppies, called mucuch´ıes, are a speciality of the region.

2.14 Jirajaran 129

relation with Quechua is Cuica fotuto ‘a musical instrument’ (compare Quechua pututu

‘shell-trumpet’). The German conquistador Niklaus Federmann also reported the use of

a shell-trumpet called botuto during his voyage to the interior of Coro in 1530 (L´opez

1985: 62). It was used as a war signal among the Jirajaran Ayam´an.

2.14 Jirajaran

The Jirajaran language family is represented by several peoples who lived in a moun-

tainous region in western Venezuela now covered by the states of Lara and Falc´on and

surrounding areas. Separated from the Caribbean coast only by the peaceful (Arawakan)

Caquet´ıo, the Jirajarans suffered the full impact of predatory European colonisation dur-

ing the ﬁrst half of the sixteenth century. Best known among the Jirajaran groups were

the Jirajara (referred to as Xidehara in Federmann’s account), the Ayam´an (or Ayom´an),

reputed for their small size, and the Gay´on.Inspite of the violent events to which they

fell victim during the sixteenth century, the Jirajarans, who were known for their brav-

ery, managed to survive until the twentieth century. Some data of Jirajara, Ayam´an and

Gay´on were collected during the ﬁrst decades of the twentieth century, mainly by Oramas

(1916) and Jahn (1927). The town of Siquisique, in the north of Lara, is the centre of the

area where the last Jirajara data were collected. The last Ayam´an speakers were found in

1910 in San Miguel de los Ayamanes, a small village near Aguada Grande, also in the

north of Lara. The last Gay´on speakers lived near Bobare, north of Barquisimeto, but

a larger community of Spanish-speaking Gay´on, el Cerrito, was located near Quibor,

south of that city, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Jahn (1927) contains word

lists of the three languages.

Constenla Uma˜na (1991) presents some of the typological characteristics of the

Jirajaran languages. Unlike Timote–Cuica, the Jirajaran languages use case sufﬁxes

or postpositions, as in (190) from Jirajara.

(190) an-g¨ui fru-ye

1S-go Siquisique-AL

‘I go to Siquisique.’

(Oramas, in Constenla Uma˜na 1991: 58)

The interpretation of an-asaﬁrst-person marker is tentative. Other instances of

ﬁrst-person subject and possessor contain a preﬁx a-, e.g. a-papuˇs´an ‘my arm’ (Jahn

1927: 380). If the interpretation of an-asaﬁrst-person marker is correct, it would be

homophonous with the ﬁrst-person pronoun in Cuica. The free pronouns for ﬁrst and

second person are oh and moh, respectively (Jahn 1927: 385).

According to Constenla Uma˜na’s observations, the word order is VO in transitive

clauses and SV in intransitive clauses, which seems to indicate a general order SVO.

Genitives and numerals precede a head noun, whereas adjectives follow it. In genitive

constructions the head noun receives a possessive preﬁx, as in (191) from Ayam´an.

130 2 The Chibcha Sphere

(191) ˇspaˇsi ´uye-m ´un

bow 3P-string

‘bow-string’

(Jahn 192: 382)

Typologically, the Jirajaran languages seem to be closest to the Chibchan languages.

However, the data are far too limited to say anything substantial about their genetic and

typological characteristics.

Some lexical similarities with Timote–Cuica can be noted,

e.g. Ayaman s´ıp,Timote ti-s´ep ‘ﬁrewood’; Ayam´an -k´ıng(e),Timote k´eun ‘to sleep’;

Ayam´an -˜nam´ı ‘to eat’, Timote nam ‘to eat (meat)’.

2.15 P´aez (Nasa Yuwe)

Here we will use the imposed name P´aez for the ethnic group (the alternative would

be Nasa), and the native name Nasa Yuwe for the language. While the ﬁrst efforts to

write a catechism in Nasa Yuwe date from 1630, the ﬁrst major vocabulary collected

for the language dates from the middle of the eighteenth century (cf. Uricoechea 1871).

The autodenomination Nasa Yuwe (‘people mouth’) for the language follows a familiar

pattern (compare runa simi for Quechua; cf. chapter 3); while originally the word nasa

may have meant ‘animate being’ it now refers to ‘P´aez Indian’ (Nieves Oviedo 1991a:

107). While many sources give a ﬁgure of 38,000 P´aez, Nieves Oviedo (1991a: 108) cites

a ﬁgure from 1989 of 94,670 members of the group, and Pach´on (1987) cites a ﬁgure

of 80,000. Pach´on indicates that the P´aez population is under strong pressure both from

exceptionally high infant mortality and from military conﬂicts. Despite strong pressure

from the colonial period onwards to move into organised villages, the P´aez have always

preferred to live dispersed among the areas of cultivation. They occupy an ecologically

very diverse territory, ranging in altitude from 500 to 3,000 metres.

There are a number of Nasa Yuwe dialects, which are described separately in Nieves

Oviedo (1991e). Most of these are very similar, but the Paniquit´a dialect is sufﬁciently

different that some authors have classiﬁed it as a separate language. The Swadesh list

of basic vocabulary included in Nieves Oviedo (1991e) shows, however, that a large

majority of the core lexical items of the Paniquit´a dialect are sufﬁciently similar to those

of the other dialects (particularly, it seems, to those of the Torib´ıo variety, but this needs

to be studied more systematically) to classify Paniquit´aasaslightly divergent dialect of

Nasa Yuwe. From the phoneme inventories presented in Nieves Oviedo (1991b, c, d) it

appears that the Paniquit´a dialect together with the Caldono dialect has preserved the

full range of Nasa Yuwe phonemes, unlike the Munchique and Torib´ıo dialects, so that

it may be a conservative variety.

Jahn (1927: 274) and Acosta Saignes (1953) mention a possible connection between Jirajaran

and the Betoi language family, formerly spoken in the Colombian lowlands, east of the Andes.

One of the Betoi subgroups is called Jirara and the (probably mistaken) identiﬁcation may be

based on a confusion of the two names.

2.15 P´aez (Nasa Yuwe) 131

Table 2.14 Caldono P´aez obstruents (following Nieves Oviedo 1991c)

Labial stop Alveolar stop Alveolar affricate Velar stop

Plain p t c k

Aspirated p

Palatalised p

Palatalised aspirated p

Prenasalised

Prenasalised palatalised

The colonial period was characterised by ﬁerce armed resistance against Spanish

colonisation, but in the eighteenth century Catholic missionaries paved the way for

permanent submission of the P´aez to Spanish domination. From 1910 to 1920 there were

rebellions involving both the P´aez and the Guambiano. Since the nineteenth century the

P´aez have started to learn Spanish, and now many are fully bilingual, particularly in the

Caldono region (Nieves Oviedo 1991e: 1). In Pach´on (1987) it is claimed that 74 per cent

of the around 80,000 P´aez are bilingual in Nasa Yuwe and Spanish, and 26 per cent are

monolingual Nasa Yuwe speakers. However, the native language is under strong political

and demographic pressure. At the same time it is very much alive and is supported by

strong native organisations such as the CRIC (Consejo Regional Ind´ıgena del Cauca),

founded in 1972. The future of Nasa Yuwe is linked to the currently highly uncertain

future of rural Colombia.

The Swadesh list (cf. Nieves Oviedo 1991e) shows some Spanish borrowings, such

as rupa ‘cloth’ (< ropa) and

deka ‘grease’ (< manteca). There are also some Quechua

borrowings, such as alku ‘dog’ (< Ecuadorian Quechua al

ku), atal

‘chicken’ (see

section 4.15), and possibly mis

‘cat (< Ecuadorian Quechua misi, ultimately from

Spanish miche), as well as tata ‘father’ and mama ‘mother’, which alternate with Nasa

Yuwe terms.

The phoneme system of Nasa Yuwe is characterised by a highly regular but extensive

series of consonants and vowels (Nieves Oviedo 1991c: 131). In the occlusive consonants

there are labials, alveolar stops, alveolar affricates and velars, which can be [± aspirated],

[± palatalised] and [± prenasalised] (table 2.14). Labiovelars [k

] and other labialised

consonants occur but are not usually counted as phonemes in the inventories.

The feature of palatalisation also plays a role in the continuants (table 2.15).

The vowel system likewise is complex but highly regular. It contains a four vowel

series, which can be plain, nasal, long, glottalised and aspirated (table 2.16).

There is dialect variation in the distribution of these consonantal and vocalic features,

e.g. ic

(h)

‘nose’ in Munchique–Tigres is pronounced as ˜



(h)

in Torib´ıo and in Caldono.

Nasa Yuwe syllable structure is relatively simple: two prevocalic consonants are al-

lowed, followed by a vowel and one or two (only the Torib´ıo variety) consonants (Jung

132 2 The Chibcha Sphere

Table 2.15 Caldono P´aez continuants (following Nieves Oviedo 1991c)

Labial Alveolar Glottal

Plain fricatives s h

Palatalised fricatives: voiceless ϕ

Palatalised fricative: voiced β

Nasals m n

Palatalised nasal n

Lateral l

Palatalised lateral l

Glides w y

Table 2.16 Caldono P´aez vowels (following Nieves Oviedo 1991b)

Oral Nasal

High Mid High High Mid High

front front Low back front front Low back

Plain i e a u ˜ı˜e˜a˜u

Long i: e: a: u: ˜ı: ˜e: ˜a: ˜u:

Glottalised i

˜ı

˜e

˜a

˜u

Aspirated i

˜ı

˜e

˜a

˜u

1989: 37; Nieves Oviedo 1991c; Yule Yatacu´e 1991b). However, even in the Torib´ıo

variety, single morphemes can only end in one consonant. Biconsonantal clusters result

from the addition of the ﬁrst-person sufﬁx -t

or the third-person sufﬁx -k (Nieves Oviedo

1991c: 129):

(192) a. ik

-t

‘I killed it.’ VCC

ŋŋ

g-t

‘I watched it.’ CVCC

ak-t

‘I cut it.’ CCVCC

b. a

b-k ‘He threw it.’ VCC

d-k ‘He tied it.’ CVCC

In other varieties than Torib´ıo an epenthetic vowel -u is placed after the biconsonantal

sequence: a

b-ku ‘he threw it’ and pa

d-t

u ‘I swept’.

Many roots are monosyllabic, such as e: ‘blood’ and kpi

‘thunder’, but bi- and

trisyllabic roots such as cme

me ‘butterﬂy’ and k

enesa ‘lightning’ occur as well. Rojas

Curieux (1991a: 20) also gives examples of quadrisyllabic roots, but it needs to be seen

whether these are not compound forms. Stress may be contrastive, but is not systemati-

cally indicated in the sources.

2.15 P´aez (Nasa Yuwe) 133

There are a number of general phonological realisation processes: (a) in word-ﬁnal

position stops are aspirated (neutralising the opposition between plain and aspirated stops

in that position); (b) in word-initial position prenasalisation is weakened or disappears

altogether; (c) there is free variation between [u] and [o]. In addition, in speciﬁc dialects

we ﬁnd all kinds of phonological variation, the most interesting of which concerns

depalatalisation before i in Torib´ıo. Bilabial palatal fricatives are optionally labialised

in this variety before i:

(193) ϕ

ic >ϕic ∼ ϕ

ic ‘guinea-pig’

From Yule Yatacu´e’s (1991a) and Nieves Oviedo’s (1991a) account a clear picture of

verbal and nominal morphology arises. It can be deduced that there are a few preﬁxes

(marking causative and reﬂexive), a set of verbal vowel sufﬁxes marking aspect, and a

set of enclitic tense, mood, negation, person and number markers:

(194) a

-ya

ʔʔ

p-me-ku-t

cook-IC-NE-RM-1S.SG.DV

‘I was not going to cook.’

(Yule Yatacu´e 1991a: 174)

(195) k-de

-e-k

CA-sleep-IA-3S.SG.EV.DV

‘He made him sleep.’

(Yule Yatacu´e 1991a: 186)

(196) k-mem-u-t

CA-sing-IA-1S.SG.DV

‘I made him sing.’

(Yule Yatacu´e 1991a: 187)

In addition, there is a proclitic preverb marking joint action. When this preverb occurs

it carries the tense and person marking:

(197) i

-∅∅-k

do.with-AO-3S.SG.EV.DV sleep

‘He slept together (with X).’

(Yule Yatacu´e 1991a: 186)

(198) i

-ku-t

k-mem-u

do.with-RM-1S.SG.DV CA-sing-IA

‘I made him sing together (with X).’

(Yule Yatacu´e 1991a: 187)

Jung remarks that in addition to verbal negation there is nominal negation, marked

with yu

pa:

(199)

ββ

a-c-me: yu

money appear-PR-NE not

‘There really is no money.’

(Jung 1989: 305)