| Chimúan | |
| Also Known As: | Yuncan |
| Acceptance: | controversial |
| Region: | Peruvian coast |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Child1: | Mochica (Yunga) |
| Glotto: | none |
Chimuan (also Chimúan) or Yuncan (Yunga–Puruhá, Yunca–Puruhán) is a hypothetical small extinct language family of northern Peru and Ecuador (inter-Andean valley).
Chimuan consisted of three attested languages:
All languages are now extinct.
Campbell (2012) classifies Mochica and Cañar–Puruhá each as separate language families.[1]
Mochica was one of the major languages of pre-Columbian South America. It was documented by Fernando de la Carrera and Middendorff in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries respectively. It became extinct ca. 1950, although some people remember a few words. Adelaar & Muysken (2004) consider Mochica a language 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: Mochica nech "river", Cañari necha; based on similarities with neighboring languages, he finds a Barbacoan connection more likely.
Quingnam, possibly the same language as Lengua (Yunga) Pescadora, is sometimes taken to be a dialect of Mochica, but it is 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 by Mason (1950):[2]
Mason (1950) also included Atalán, which is no longer considered to be part of the Yunca-Puruhán (Chimuan) family.
Tovar (1961),[3] partly based on Schmidt (1926),[4] adds Tallán (Sechura–Catacao) to Chimuan (which he calls Yunga-Puruhá). Tovar's (1961) classification below is cited from Stark (1972).
See main article: Maya–Yunga–Chipayan languages. Stark (1972) proposed a Maya–Yunga–Chipayan macrofamily linking Mayan with Uru–Chipaya and Yunga (Mochica).[5]
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Chimuan languages.[6]
| gloss | 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 |