| Cañari | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Ecuador |
| Region | Ecuadoran Andes |
| Ethnicity | Cañari |
| Extinct | early Colonial era |
Barbacoan ?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | cana1260 |
Cañar orCañari is a poorly attestedextinct language of the Marañón River basin in Ecuador which is difficult to classify, apart from being apparently related toPuruhá, though it may have beenChimuan orBarbacoan. (SeeCañari–Puruhá languages.) It was the original language of theCañari people before its replacement byKichwa and laterSpanish.
The following tentative phonology given below is from Howard (2010).[1]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | |
| voiced | b | d | g | ||
| Affricate | ch | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | sh | x | |
| voiced | z | zh | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ñ | ŋ | |
| Vibrant | r | ||||
| Lateral | l | ll | |||
| Semivowel | w | y | |||
 | This yesshould specify the language of its non-English content using{{lang}} or{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used.See why.(June 2025) |
According to Urban (2018),[2] modern-dayCañarQuichua (spoken inCañar Province,Ecuador) has a Cañarisubstratum, which can be seen in the phonology and lexicon of the dialect. Below is a list of Cañar Quichua words withBarbacoan lexical parallels, and hence likely to be words of Cañari origin. The words were compiled by Urban (2018) from Cordero (1895),[3] Cordero Palacios (1923),[4] and Paris (1961), and are compared in the table below to words the Barbacoan languagesTotoró,Cha'palaa, andTsafiki as well asProto-Barbacoan reconstructions.[5]
| Cañar Quichua | Barbacoan | Gloss | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cordero | Cordero Palacios | Paris | Proto-Barbacoan | Totoró | Cha'palaa | Tsafiki | |
| izhi ‘fog, very light drizzle’ | izhin ‘drizzle’ | izhi | *iʃ ‘smoke' | ‘fog/smoke’ | |||
| putu[l] | *pɨt(ɨ) (Urban's own reconstruction) | ‘rotten’ | |||||
| pachi ‘kind of tree of the eastern highlands’ | *tsik ‘tree, stick' | ‘kind of tree’ | |||||
| [chuchip]chi ‘kind of small tree’ | [chuchip]chi ‘kind of plant,Abatia verbascifolia | ‘kind of tree’ | |||||
| [pil]chi | [pil]chi ‘kind of plant,Crescentia cujete’ | [pil]chi ‘vessel, junk made of coco, calabash’ | ‘calabash tree’ | ||||
| nunchi | ‘kind of shrub’ | ||||||
| chipu ‘a kind of insect that jumps’ | chipu ‘locust’ | chijpi ‘flea' | chi’pın ‘flea’ | ‘a kind of insect that jumps’ | |||
| mulu ‘rustic plate, made of clay and without adornment’ | mulu | milan | ‘plate’ | ||||
| chiru ‘orangutan [sic!]’ | churi | ‘monkey’ | |||||
| cuylan ‘small lizard’ | cuilan | cuilan ~ cullan ‘small lizard’ | kalun[c’i] (Vasquez de Ruiz 2009) | ‘lizard’ | |||
| sutu, zzutu | su’tu ‘inserted, put between’ | ‘knot’ | |||||
| zzuyu | suyun ‘rainbow’ | ‘dusk’ | |||||
| palu | palu | palu | [lan]palo ‘common lizard’ | ‘lizard’ | |||
| pu[nya]- ‘stink excessively, emit a nauseating smell’ | pu[dyu] ‘smelling badly | pu[ba]- ‘smelly’ | ‘smell, stink’ | ||||
| piri ‘light scabies’ | piri ‘vile, despicable, mangy’ | piri ‘light scabies, grain mold’ | <pirr[sureg]>, <pirr[sé]> ‘lepra’ (Otero 1952: 317, 310) | ‘skin disease’ | |||
| palti | palti ‘height, lookout (?)’ | *tɨ ‘firewood’ | pala ‘high, up’ (Vasquez de Ruiz 2009) | ‘platform built in high place’ | |||
| tulu | tulu | tulu | tolo ‘bag' | ‘sack or bag’ | |||
| taba ‘rubbish consisting of branches and leaves which covers rocky regions’ | taba ‘scrub, place full of scrub’ | taba ‘mosquito, rubbish, tangle’ | tape ‘grass’ | ta’pe ‘grass, bush’ | ‘vegetable waste/grass’ | ||
| cuzu ‘larva of some insects’ | cussu ‘larva of beetle (?!)’ | kuzu ‘thick worm, found especially in potatoes’ | ku’ʃi ‘worm | ‘larva/worm’ | |||
| punzu | punzu ‘rubbish, tow, fine straw’ | pu’chu ‘rest' | ‘fine straw, tow-like rubbish’ | ||||
| pu[zha] | pu[zha] ‘stalk, rubbish’ | ‘small leaves, fibrous rubbish’ | |||||
| pichi ‘red, crimson, scarlet’ | pichi ‘red, crimson’ | piku(ˈtik), piki(tik) (Vasquez de Ruiz 2009) | ‘red’ | ||||
| pilis ‘body louse of human or animals’ | pilis ‘body louse’ | pilis ‘body louse’ | palekˈtɨ | ‘louse’ | |||
| malta ‘small clay jug to store or sellchicha’ | malta ‘small jug made of fired clay’ | mala ‘sugar cane juice, chicha’ | ‘(vessel for)chicha’ | ||||
| jizi ‘laughing, one who laughs without discretion’ | jissi | jizi ‘laughing’ | ‘laugh’ | ||||
| chas ‘spontaneous growth of potatoes in an already harvested field’ | ‘field’ (?) | ||||||
| batiuc ‘lamb’ | ba’tu fu ‘freshly grown hair’ | ‘fresh, young’ (?) | |||||
| munzhi ‘naughty, playful, restless’ | ‘naughty, playful, restless’ | ||||||