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Subtiaba language
View on Wikipedia| Subtiaba | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Nicaragua |
| Ethnicity | 20,000 (2005)[1]-49,000 (2006)[2] |
| Extinct | 1920s[3] |
Oto-Mangue
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sut |
| Glottolog | subt1250 |
Subtiaba, also known as Maribio, is an extinct Oto-Manguean language which was spoken on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, especially in the Subtiaba district of León. Edward Sapir established a connection between Subtiaba and Tlapanec. When Lehmann wrote about it in 1909 it was already very endangered or moribund.
The name "Subtiaba" may be of Nahuatl origin, from the roots xoctli ("black snail"), atl ("water"), pan ("on").[4]
Phonology
[edit]Lehmann thought there may have been some sort of variation between voiceless and voiced stops, which may account for some discrepancies between datasets. Stops were voiced after nasals. <r> and < hr > were used in transcriptions to represent /ʂ/, a phonological correspondence shared with some local registers of Spanish and other Central American indigenous languages.
Lexicon
[edit]Subtiaba evidently had some loanwords from Mangue, a neighboring language only distantly related. These include chitú "cat" (Mangue chitu), sidáa "rooster" (M. sitaraca), ñusi "tiste" (from M. ñusi, "cacao"), dagaba "frog/toad" (M. na-tokopó). Both Subtiaba words for corn may have ultimately derived from Mayan languages.
There were also loans from Spanish. For example, jabón "soap" became Subtiaba rabuni /ʂabuni/, having been borrowed at a time when the Spanish word was still pronounced with an initial /ʃ/.
Lexical comparison with Tlapanec
[edit]Lexical comparison from Native American Language Net:[5]
| English | Subtiaba | Tlapanec |
|---|---|---|
| One | i·mba | mba1 |
| Two | a·pu· | a3hma3 |
| Three | a·su | a2cu1 |
| Four | axku | a2kho3 |
| Man | ra·bu | ša3bo3 |
| Woman | ra·bagu· | a'3go3 |
| Dog | ru·wa | šu3wã1 |
| Sun | ahka | a3kha'3 |
| Moon | uku | gő'3 |
| Water | i·lu | i2ya2 |
Note that Subtiaba <r> represents /ʂ/.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Subtiaba language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "8. Xiu | Territorio Indígena y Gobernanza".
- ^ Subtiaba at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "8. Xiu | Territorio Indígena y Gobernanza".
- ^ Native American Language Net
- Campbell, Lyle (1979): "Middle American Languages" en The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment, Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.), Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 902–999.
- Sapir, Edward (1925). "The Hokan affinity of Subtiaba in Nicaragua". American Anthropologist. New Series. 27 (3, 4): 402–435, 491–527. doi:10.1525/aa.1925.27.3.02a00040.
- Suárez, Jorge A. (1977). El tlapaneco como lengua Otomangue (in Spanish). México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México.
- Campbell, Lyle. “Subtiaba 1974.” International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 41, no. 1, 1975, pp. 80–84. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1264899. Accessed 26 Jan. 2026.
External links
[edit]- Subtiaba, at Summer Institute of Linguistics
- OLAC resources in and about the Subtiaba language