Munichi language

Munichi is an extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles (16 km) west of Yurimaguas, Loreto Region, Peru. In 1988, there were two mother-tongue speakers, but they had not met since the 1970s. The last known fluent speaker, Victoria Huancho Icahuate, died in the late 1990s, but the language was already moribund by the 1930s. As of 2009, there were several semi-speakers who retained significant lexical, and partial grammatical, knowledge of the language (Michael et al. 2013).

Munichi
Muniche, Balsapuertiño
Native to	Peru
Region	Loreto
Extinct	late 1990s, with the death of Victoria Huancho Icahuate 1-2 semispeakers (2023)
Language family	Language isolate
Dialects	see below
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`myr`
Glottolog	`muni1258`
ELP	Munichi
Location of Munichi

It is also called Balsapuertiño, named after the village of Balsapuerto in the department of Loreto, Peru.

Word order in Munichi is VSO.

Classification

The language is considered an isolate (Michael et al. 2013), but the pronominal suffixes bear a close resemblance to those reconstructed for proto-Arawakan (Gibson 1996:18-19), and some lexical items are similar to ones in Arawakan languages (Jolkesky 2016:310–317). Although Jolkesky (id.) argues that the language belongs to a putative Macro-Arawakan stock, evidence has yet to be provided for placing it either in a sister branch to the Arawakan language family or in a branch within this language family. There is substantial borrowing from the local variety of Quechua, and to a lesser extent from Spanish and Cahuapanan languages (Michael et al. 2013).

Varieties

Unattested "Munichi stock" varieties listed by Loukotka (1968):

Tabaloso - spoken in Loreto department in the village of Tabalosa on the Mayo River
Chasutino (Cascoasoa) - once spoken in the village of Chasuta on the Huallaga River; now only Quechua is spoken.
Huatama (Otanavi) - once spoken in the villages of San José de Sisa and Otanahui in the same region; now only Quechua is spoken. Is a variety of Muniche proper.
Lama (Lamista) - extinct language once spoken on the Moyobamba River. The last survivors now speak only Quechua or Spanish.
Suchichi (Suriche) - extinct language once spoken in the village of Tarapoto in the same region
Zapaso - extinct language from the same region, once spoken on the Saposoa River
Nindaso - once spoken on the Huallaga River north of the Zapaso tribe
Nomona - once spoken on the left bank of the Saposoa River

Varieties listed by Mason (1950):

Muniche
Muchimo
Otanabe
Churitana

Currently, there are two distinguished varieties of Muniche. One of the dialects merges certain phonemes that the other dialect does not.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Cholon-Hibito, Kechua, and Mochika language families due to contact.

A number of Spanish loanwords may have passed through Shiwilu, a Cahuapanan language.

Phonology

Vowels

Munichi has six vowels: /a, e, i, ɨ, o, u/. Michael et al. (2023) reduce this to five vowels, these being /i, ɨ, u, e, a/.

Consonants

Consonants
		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t			c	k	ʔ
Stop	voiced		d				g
Affricate			t͡s	t͡ʃ²	ʈʂ
Fricative			s	ʃ	ʂ	ç		h³
Nasal		m	n¹			ɲ¹
Approximant			l			j	(w)
Flap			ɾ

The two nasals listed here are treated as one placeless nasal by Michael et al. (2023). It assimilates to the position of the following stop or affricate; otherwise it is realized as [n] in onsets and [ŋ] in codas. This may be seen in the following examples:

iN-pa

[iʔmpa]

peach.palm-CLF:mash

'peach palm mash'

iN-sa

[iʔŋsa]

peach.palm-CLF:fluid

'peach palm drink'

Note that [m] does not exhibit this assimilation.

hamte-ɲe

[hamteɲe]

child-1SG

'my child'

[t͡ʃ] and [ʈʂ] lose their contrast before /i/, /e/, and /ɨ/, with only [t͡ʃ] occurring before /i/ and /e/, and [ʈʂ] before /ɨ/.
/h/ becomes [x] immediately before other consonants.

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable in Muniche is C₁C₂VC₃, with the following restrictions for the consonants. Syllables without onset are permitted.

C₁ must be voiceless.
C₂ cannot be a fricative.
C₁ and C₂ cannot be a glottal stop.
C₁ and C₂ cannot be both fricatives or both affricates.

Many consonant clusters in Muniche are suspected to arise from vowel reduction.

Verbs

Desiderative

Muniche has a desiderative suffix -çu ~ -cu, used to express that the subject of a verb to which the suffix is attached desires the outcome of the clause.

ʂa-çu-me=ɲe

eat-DESI-PFV=1SG

iʔteʔsira

soup

maçu

deer

'I want to eat deer soup'

çawɨ-çu=nɨ

sit-DESI-1SG

raneʔe

there

'I want to sit there'

The subject must be the one desiring the realization of an action and the realizer of the action. To express the desire of someone else realizing an action, the complement-taking verb açta must be used.

açta-me=ɲe

want-PFV-1SG

sica-t=pɨ=nɨ

sell-IRR=2SG=1SG

puʔu

meat

ʂnɨrɨ

paca

'I want you to sell me paca meat'

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Munichi.

gloss	Munichi
one	wuítsa
two	utspa
three	uchuma
head	óke
ear	épue
tooth	dé
fire	chúshe
stone	sögte
sun	xowá
moon	spáltsi
maize	sáa
dog	xíno
boat	niasúta

Bibliography

Gibson, Michael L. 1996. El Munichi: Un idioma que se extingue. Serie Lingüística Peruana, 42. Pucallpa: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Available here.
Jolkesky, M. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas. Brasilia: UnB. PhD Dissertation. Available here.
Michael, Lev, Stephanie Farmer, Greg Finley, Christine Beier, and Karina Sullón Acosta. 2013. A sketch of Muniche segmental and prosodic phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 79(3):307-347.
Michael, L.; Beier, Ch.; Acosta, K. S.; Farmer, S.; Finley, G.; Roswell, M. (2009). Dekyunáwa: Un diccionario de nuestro idioma muniche. (Manuscript).