| Munichi | |
|---|---|
| Muniche | |
| Native to | Peru |
| Region | Loreto |
| Extinct | late 1990s, with the death of Victoria Huancho Icahuate "several" semispeakers (2009) |
| Dialects | see below |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | myr |
| Glottolog | muni1258 |
| ELP | Munichi |
 Location of Munichi | |
Munichi is an extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles (16 km) west ofYurimaguas,Loreto Region,Peru. In 1988, there were two mother-tongue speakers, but they had not met since the 1970s. The last known fluent speaker, Victoria Huancho Icahuate, died in the late 1990s. As of 2009 there were several semi-speakers who retained significant lexical, and partial grammatical, knowledge of the language (Michael et al. 2013).
It is also calledBalsapuertiño, named after the village ofBalsapuerto in thedepartment of Loreto, Peru.[1]
Word order in Munichi isVSO.[2][3]
Unattested "Munichi stock" varieties listed by Loukotka (1968):[1]
Varieties listed byMason (1950):[4]
The language is considered an isolate (Michael et al. 2013), but thepronominalsuffixes bear a close resemblance to those reconstructed for proto-Arawakan (Gibson 1996:18-19), and some lexical items are similar to ones in Arawakan languages (Jolkesky 2016:310–317).[5] Although Jolkesky (id.) argues that the language belongs to a putativeMacro-Arawakan stock, evidence has yet to be provided for placing it either in a sister branch to the Arawakan language family or in a branch within this language family. There is substantial borrowing from the local variety ofQuechua, and to a lesser extent fromSpanish andCahuapanan languages (Michael et al. 2013).
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with theCholon-Hibito,Kechua, andMochika language families due to contact.[6]
Munichi has six vowels: /a, e, i, ɨ, o, u/.[7]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palato-alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ | ||
| voiced | d | g | ||||||
| Affricate | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ʈʂ | |||||
| Fricative | s | ʃ | ʂ | ç | h | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||||
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Munichi.[1]
| gloss | Munichi |
|---|---|
| one | wuítsa |
| two | utspa |
| three | uchuma |
| head | óke |
| ear | épue |
| tooth | dé |
| fire | chúshe |
| stone | sögte |
| sun | xowá |
| moon | spáltsi |
| maize | sáa |
| dog | xíno |
| boat | niasúta |
