Cuitlatec language

Cuitlatec, or Cuitlateco, is an extinct language isolate of Mexico, formerly spoken by an indigenous people known as Cuitlatec.

Classification

Cuitlatec has not been convincingly classified as belonging to any language family. It is believed to be a language isolate. In their controversial classification of the indigenous languages of the Americas, Greenberg and Ruhlen include Cuitlatec in an expanded Chibchan language family, along with a variety of other Mesoamerican and South American languages. Escalante Hernández suggests a possible relation to the Uto-Aztecan languages.

Cuitlatec was spoken in the state of Guerrero. In the 16th century, the Relaciones geográficas recorded Cuitlatec spoken in Ajuchitlán and Tetela del Rio, while it was also known to be spoken along much of the Costa Grande. By the 1930s, Cuitlatec was spoken only in San Miguel Totolapan. The last speaker of the language, Juana Can, is believed to have died in the 1960s. In 1979, only two elderly women, Florentina Celso and Apolonia Robles, were able to remember about fifty words of the language.

Sentences generally follow SVO word order. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify.

Cuitlatec	Common name	Scientific name
citakáʔli	Sweet acacia, Cascalote	Vachellia farnesiana, Caesalpinia coriaria
éhci	Capire	Sideroxylon cartilagineum
nempáʔa	Monkeypod tree, Camachile	Pithecellobium dulce
ɨncipéʔɬu	Charamasca	Tanacetum annuum
puɬɨʔmelpɨmɨ	Nanche, hogberry	Byrsonima crassifolia
ɬɨmʃíli; ʃemɨʔʃilí	Tololote	Andira inermis
ʃiɬiʔá	Tepemesquite	Lysiloma divaricatum
wíhci	Chupandia	Cyrtocarpa procera
yóʔo	White leadtree	Leucaena leucocephala
mɨnɨmɨli	Gliricidia	Gliricidia sepium''