Timote language

Timote
Cuica
Spoken in	Venezuela
Native speakers	perhaps 200 in the village of Mutús  (date missing)
Language family	Timotean Timote
Dialects	Timote Cuica ?Mutú (Loco)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	qpj

Timote, also known as Cuica or Timote–Cuica, was the language of the Timote–Cuica state in the Venezuelan Andes, around the present city of Mérida and south of Lake Maracaibo.

The language is reported to have gone extinct in the early to mid 20th century. However, in 1977 it was reported that the indigenous village of Mutús, in the heart of the old Timote state, still spoke an indigenous language, which would presumably be Timote. The name is apparently Timote, as 'Timote' itself derives from ti-motɨ 'Mutú speakers', and mutú or mukú is a common toponym in the region. This lead had not been followed up as of Adelaar (2004).

Dialects

The Timote and Cuica peoples apparently spoke dialects of a single language; some of the last reports of Cuica claim it was nothing other than Timote. Data is limited, but the connection is clear in the numerals:

Gloss	Timote	Cuica
1	karí
2	xem, xen
3	šut, sut, hisxut	šuent
4	pit	pití
5	kabó, kabok	kamó
6	kasum, kaksúm, kapsún	katseunt
7	mai-xem, mai-xén	ma-en
8	mai-xut, mai-sxut	mabi-šuent
9	mai-pit	mabi-pita
10	tabís

Consonant clusters, somewhat unusual for the area, are found, especially in Cuica: kču 'bird', stots 'blood', Timote klef 'rainy season', hutn 'dog'.

References

• Adelaar, Willem & Pieter Muysken (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge University Press. pp. 124–129

External links

• Fabre: Mutús