Chimuan (alsoChimúan) orYuncan (Yunga–Puruhá, Yunca–Puruhán) is a hypothetical smallextinctlanguage family of northernPeru andEcuador (inter-Andean valley).

Chimuan is proposed to be consisted of at least three attested languages:

All languages are now extinct.

Campbell (2012) classifiesMochica andCañar–Puruhá each as separate language families.^[1]

Mochica was one of the major languages ofpre-Columbian South America. It was documented by Fernando de la Carrera andMiddendorff in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries respectively. It became extinct ca. 1950, although some people remember a few words. Adelaar & Muysken (2004) consider Mochica alanguage isolate for now.

Cañari and Puruhá are documented with only a few words. These two languages are usually connected with Mochica. However, as their documentation level is so low, it may not be possible to confirm this association. According to Adelaar & Muysken (2004), Jijón y Caamaño's evidence of their relationship is only a single word: Mochicanech "river", Cañarinecha; based on similarities with neighboring languages, he finds aBarbacoan connection more likely.

Quingnam, likely the same language as Lengua (Yunga) Pescadora, is sometimes taken to be a dialect of Mochica, but it is effectively unattested, unless a list of numerals discovered in 2010 turns out to be Quingnam or Pescadora as expected. Those numerals are not, however, Mochica.

Yunca-Puruhán (Chimuan) internal classification byMason (1950):^[2]

Mason (1950) addedAtalán to the family.

Tovar (1961),^[3] partly based on Schmidt (1926),^[4] addsTallán (Sechura–Catacao) to Chimuan (which he callsYunga-Puruhá). Tovar's (1961) classification below is cited from Stark (1972).^[5]

Stark (1972) proposed aMaya–Yunga–Chipayan macrofamily linkingMayan withUru–Chipaya andYunga (Mochica).^[5]

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Chimuan languages.^[6]

gloss	Chimú	Eten	Cañari	Puruhá
one	onkó	unik
two	atput	atput		pax
head	lek	xäts	gíchan
hand	möch	metsan
water	leng	xa	kay	la
fire	hog	óx
sun	sheang	sheang	chán
maize	aixa	mang		manga
bird	ñaíñ	ñaíñ		ñay
jaguar	räk	rak	guagal	guagua
fish	shl'ak	t'ak		shl'ak
house	ánik	an	án	án

• Mochica language
• Sechura–Catacao languages

• Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004).The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press.
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997).American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-509427-5.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.),Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.

• PROEL:Familia Chimúan

• Chimuan languages
• Proposed language families
• Extinct languages of South America

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Families rejected by Glottolog