Notes on Yurumanguí grammar and lexicon

Abstract

In this article, I offer a contribution to the philological study of premodern materials of languages of South America that have already become extinct. I am concerned with the Yurumanguí language, whose speakers were encountered in the 18th century in the western lowlands of Colombia by a Spanish expedition. This encounter resulted in the production of a short collection of words and phrases by a priest which is analyzed here anew. Problems of inconsistent and likely highly inadequate orthographic representation of the speech of the Yurumanguí informants and other problems, in this case, make it highly difficult to arrive at consistent analyses, as I show throughout my highly tentative discussion of nominal and verbal morphosyntax. I also offer external comparisons for some of the available Yurumanguí lexical material. Far from being able to demonstrate the genetic connections of the language, such comparisons do allow to identify items the Yurumanguí language shared with neighboring languages and hence to situate it within the former linguistic ecology of this part of South America.

Language classification, language contact and Andean prehistory: The North

“…113–116; Van Gijn & Muysken, 2020, p. 191). Analysis in Urban (2019b) has shown that a nasal–oral vowel contrast is likely for Yurumanguí, and aspects of the data are also consistent with the spread of nasal features across phonological domains. All this suggests an old coastal lowland‐Andes–Amazonia transect that may or may not dovetail with Pache's (2016) proposal for a geneaological connection between Chocoan and Pume (Yaruro).…”

“…In terms of language geography, isolates tend to occur not in the highest parts of the Andes at their respective latitudes, but rather at somewhat lower altitudes, especially on the eastern slopes. For the northern part of the Andes, they include Yurumanguí [yuru1242] in the Pacific‐facing lowlands of Colombia (Urban, 2019b) and Esmeraldeño (Atacame) [atac1235] on the coast of northern Ecuador (Adelaar, 2005). ‘Eastward‐facing’ isolates include Nasa Yuwe (Páez) [paez1247] in southern Colombia, Andaquí [anda1286] at still lower altitudes further east in the same area, Kamsá [cams1241] in southern Colombia east of Pasto and A'ingae (Cofán) [cofa1242] in the Colombian–Ecuadorian border area.…”

“…Esmeraldeño shows a strong lexical influence from Barbacoan (Adelaar, 2005; Adelaar with Muysken, 2004, p. 159), and there is some Nasa Yuwe‐Barbacoan lexical transfer in the highlands (Curnow, 1998). Yurumanguí has borrowed clearly from Chocoan and perhaps also Barbacoan languages (Urban, 2019b). Chocoan languages, in turn, have borrowed from the Chibchan Guna language (Urban, 2018c, p. 41).…”

“…For other extinct languages, often occupying key geographical positions, we only have the most rudimentary materials available. One focus of research in recent years has been on the philological reconstitution of such materials to make them usable for comparative purposes (e.g., Alexander‐Bakkerus, 2005, in press; Coronas Urzua, 1994, 1995; Hovdhaugen, 2004; Adelaar, 2005; Quesada Pacheco, 2012; Urban, 2018a, 2019a, 2019b). For other areas, such work is still outstanding, but, where languages have vanished and left no or only minimal traces, even this is impossible.…”