Quingnam (also misspelled Quignam), also called Pescadora (though this name is ambiguous) and Chimú, is an extinct pre-Columbian language formerly spoken by the Chimú people on the coast of northern Peru. At the height of the Chimú conquests, the language was spoken extensively from the Jequetepeque River in the north to the Carabayllo River (near present-day Lima) in the south. However, after the Spanish conquest, the language declined rapidly and was extinct by 1763. It is virtually unknown, with a list of numerals, proper names and a few other scattered words constituting the only data on this language. The language has been historically conflated with Mochica, another extinct language spoken in coastal Peru, but is completely distinct and unrelated to it.

Etymology

There are various possible etymologies for the name Quingnam, which is believed to be an exonym. The first links it to the Mochica word king 'to spin'. The name would thus mean 'to spin, for spinning', with the assumption of a metaphorical link between spinning and speech. Cerrón-Palomino, however, rejects this as a popular etymology.

Salas García (2010) suggests that quingnam may mean 'fisherman' in Quingnam, but the word for 'fisherman' in locations where Quingnam was spoken is recorded as guaxme, guachemin[es] or uachime instead.

Another etymology can be derived from the name of a person named Quin Namo. This person is only mentioned in a document called the Crónica de Ocxaguaman. The name has a similar structure to other names in the territory of Chimor, specifically in the presence of an element -namo, possibly designating a title of a lord. Perhaps Quin Namo was so important as to serve as the namesake for his language, and many other language designations of the Spanish derive from personal names.

History

The Quingnam language became extinct shortly after the arrival of the conquistadors. Miguel Feyjoo[wikidata] reported that in 1763, the language had already become extinct in favor of Spanish.

Documentation

It is mentioned that a grammar, dictionary and other documents describing a language spoken in the Chicama Valley were written by a Dominican friar named Pedro de Aparicio. The language that was described by Aparicio could be either Mochica or Quingnam, but the question is unresolved as these materials have not been found. Works by the Mercedarians Benito de Jarandilla and Bartolomé de Vargas have also been lost, including a grammar by Vargas titled Arte de la lengua que llaman pescadora. The name of the grammar strongly suggests that it is a description of Quingnam.

Prior to the identification of Quingnam and its respective documentation, it was treated as a synonym of Mochica.

An early 17th-century letter found during excavations at Magdalena de Cao Viejo in the El Brujo Archaeological Complex includes a list of decimal numerals on the back which are probably Quingnam (Pescadora), but they are not Mochica, lending support to the theory that the two were distinct and unrelated languages.

Quingnam and the lengua pescadora

Fishermen along the Chimú coast were reported to have spoken a language called Lengua Pescadora (fisherman language) by Spanish missionaries, and disambiguated as Yunga Pescadora by linguists; this is presumably the same as Quingnam. A report by Antonio de la Calancha indicates that Pescadora and Quingnam were the same language, but Pescadora was more "guttural". However, the designation lengua pescadora has also referred to Mochica, entirely unrelated to Quingnam, as well, further confusing the designations.

Phonology

A few phonological aspects of Quingnam may be deduced from the highly limited data, namely presence of word-final stress, and allowance of consonants in the coda position, as evidenced by the word sut '6'. Colonial Spanish sources describe the language as more difficult than Mochica and of "obscure and of slippery pronunciation" according to chronicler Antonio de la Calancha.

Consonants

A number of sounds may be ascertained in Quingnam due to their relative incidence and corresponding phonetic values in Spanish. Among them are voiceless stops [p], [t], [k]; an affricate [tʃ]; nasals [m], [n], [ɲ]; two laterals, sometimes alternating with each other, [l] and [ʎ]; and an approximant [j]. Two sibilants at different points of articulation also appear, one alveolar, similar in quality to [s] and written as ⟨s⟩ or ⟨z⟩, and the other palatal as [ʃ], written ⟨x⟩. The sound written as ⟨r⟩ alternates with ⟨l⟩ and ⟨n⟩, making it more likely to be a tap [ɾ] rather than a trill [r]. The sound [w] may also be postulated based on orthgraphic alternations of sequences of ⟨ua⟩, ⟨guV⟩ (where V represents a wildcard for any vowel) and ⟨ao⟩, present in both proper names and lexical items. This sound may also be represented by ⟨v⟩ and sometimes ⟨b⟩, which alternate orthographically with the above sequences.

Voiced stops

⟨b⟩ represents a confusing case for determining its phonetic value; in certain cases it represented a fricative [β] or an approximant [w]. ⟨d⟩, in contrast, is much clearer in its pronunciation; it is very rare in recorded toponyms, or place names, such as Canda, Capuxaida, and Simpad, the latter also written as Simbal and Simpat (which may be from Culli, another extinct language of Peru, instead). These cases may be due to voicing after nasals or intervocalically (between vowels). Finally, the letter ⟨g⟩ occurs in combination with ⟨ua⟩ and ⟨uo⟩ in word-initial and medial position (at the start or in the middle of a word) alternating with ⟨h⟩ and ⟨v⟩ and after ⟨n⟩ word-medially, as well as independent of other graphemes word-medially. A hapax legomenon spelling of the name Cuyuchi as Guyuche, with ⟨g⟩ word-initially, is also attested. The first case is evidently a transcription of [w] in a Spanish orthography and the second can be explained as an instance of voicing after nasals. However, a few examples (e.g. Ningle ~ Ñingle) can be explained as a velar nasal [ŋ], and some instances of independent ⟨g⟩ may be due to errors in the transcription (e.g. Begap as a misspelling of Beguap, with an approximant or fricative instead). Nevertheless, the only explanation for certain occurrences of ⟨g⟩ is an intervocalic voicing, more common in medial than in initial position, although cases of these are infrequent.

Alternations

A number of alternations are noticeable in various proper names. For example, ⟨p⟩ can be found in a few instances alternating with [k], written as ⟨c⟩ or ⟨qu⟩, such as in the names Soloque~Solop and Occopmuña~Ocpocmuña. The latter is particularly notable as it implies that both [p] and [k] were present in the name, possibly even coarticulated as [k͡p], pronounced as a simultaneous [k] and [p]. This sound is extremely rare in the world, but most notably occurs in Muisca, a Chibchan language.

The presence of /f/

Quingnam toponyms are distinguished from Mochica toponyms by the absence of /f/ and the presence of /w/. Indeed, there are very few toponyms in the Moche Valley which contain this letter. This may be due to a co-occurrence of Mochica and Quingnam in the area. In any case, the evidence for /f/ in Quingnam is very weak.

Other fricatives

The other letters representing fricatives are ⟨s⟩, ⟨sh⟩, ⟨x⟩, and ⟨j⟩. The first three alternate with each other before the vowel ⟨a⟩, which could indicate their phonetic value as some sort of postalveolar or palatal fricative, such as [ɕ] or [ç]. In addition, ⟨j⟩ alternates with ⟨x⟩ in both the initial and medial position, and may have still represented the fricative [ʒ] at the time in Spanish writing.

Nasals

An extremely frequent alternation of nasals is with zero, the absence of a sound, most commonly in the word-final position and in word-internal clusters. This may indicate a nasalization of the preceding vowel; the letters ⟨m⟩ and ⟨n⟩ are interchangeable in this position, which is indicative of a lack of a precise place of articulation. Further alternations include ⟨n⟩ and ⟨ñ⟩, particularly noteworthy because the two letters alternate in more than one token within the same form, such as in the name Canenam~Cañoñam.

Vowels

Five vowels may be posited based on the available data, being [a], [e], [i], [o], and [u]. There is no evidence to suggest that [e] and [o] are allophones, or phonetic variations, of their raised counterparts [i] and [u]. All vowels frequently alternate with zero in the penultimate syllable of trisyllabic forms, such as in Campcha~Campocha, with the alternating vowel's quality apparently being phonologically conditioned by the environment. For example, ⟨o⟩ is present in a non-front vowel environment, and ⟨i⟩ appears whenever it is also present in a form. This may be due to a schwa-type vowel which is realized differently based on the environment, or may be a case of vowel epenthesis due to Spanish influence, as suggested by Cerrón-Palomino. A very similar phenomenon also occurs in Mochica with its "sixth vowel", written as ⟨æ⟩ in the colonial grammars, so some of the examples above may actually belong to it rather than Quingnam.

Phonotactics

All consonants attested, except for a hypothetical [ŋ], occur in the word-initial position, although [ɾ] only occurs in two proper names, Rina and Rincha. The syllable structure of Quingnam is predominantly (C)V(C), where C represents a wildcard for any consonant and V for any vowel. Very few consonant clusters can be observed in proper names; for example, there are only eight such names attested in the Moche Valley, being Abcla, Olgpa, Ñingle~Ningle, Sevatr, Prexiran, Sept, Tingrahuaman, and the name of Xacchcac Guamanchumo, a ruler of Chimor.

Vocabulary

Quingnam is extremely poorly attested. The primary source in it is the letter discovered at the El Brujo complex in 2010, containing 14 numerals in a language generally assumed to be Quingnam. The numerals are quite dissimilar to those in Mochica, but some show clear signs of being loaned from Quechua. A few other scattered words are mentioned by colonial sources, as well as some possible Quingnam-derived words in the local dialect of Spanish spoken in the region today. In addition to these sources, proper names, including personal names and toponyms, can be taken to be derived from Quingnam, and analyzed accordingly.

Numerals

Below are the numerals from the letter found at Magdalena de Cao (Quilter et al. 2010, as transcribed by Urban 2019). Although the manuscript does not indicate which language the numerals belong to, Quingnam is assumed as it is the most likely candidate based on location and notable dissimilarity to Mochica:

Numeral Form 1 chari 2 marian 3 apar 4 tau 5 himic (?) 6 sut (?) 7 canchen 8 mata 9 yucan 10 bencor 21 maribencor chari tayac 30 apar bencor 100 chari pachac 200 mari pachac

The numerals tau '4', sut '6', canchen '7', and pachac '100' are loanwords from a variety of Quechua II, being tawa, suqta, qanchis, and pachac in Quechua respectively.

Analysis

The words for 1, 2, and 3, chari, marian and apar evidently contain unmarked bound morphemes. marian, when compared with the forms maribencor chari tayac '21' and mari pachac '200', apparently contains a suffix -an; in addition, the three words may also contain a common suffix -ari if apar '3' is derived from an original form *apari. In addition, sut '6' may have been pronounced as *[suʔt] as a loan from Quechua.

Other words

de la Calancha gives the etymology of the name Pacatnamu as meaning 'father of all' or 'common father', and gives the word for 'god' as vini in the language of the "maritimos Pescadores". Feijoo (1763) gives the word chimo as meaning 'powerful' in Quingnam, though the language had already gone extinct at the time of his writing. Another possible word in Quingnam, patà, refers to a constellation composed of Alnitak and Mintaka in Orion's Belt, is not registered in any Mochica documentation and is phonologically unusual for Mochica. The term munaos, taken to refer to ancestor mummies worshipped as huaca, is presumably Quingnam, or at least of a coastal language, due to the presence of a Don Francisco de Azabache Munao Chimo listed as the cacique of Moche in the 17th century. However, it may instead be related to Mochica munà/mena 'grandfather'. Other such terms include morpis 'punishing gods', yale 'strong variety of chicha offered to huacas' (cf. Mochica cutzhio 'chicha'), and ñaca 'cut hair offered to huacas'.

Loanwords

In the earliest dictionary of any Quechuan language, two peculiar words with no other Quechuan-language equivalents are found: guaxme 'fisherman' and thome 'sea lion'. In particular, guaxme is found in two other colonial descriptions as guachemines and uachime in the context of a population name. The variety of Quechua found in the dictionary is typically considered to be the now-extinct Coastal Quechua, which would have been spoken near Quingnam and received lexical influence from it.

See also