Quingnam language
The Quingnam language was a pre-Columbian language that was spoken by the Chimú people, who lived in the former territories of the Mochicas, an area north of the Chicama Chao River Valley. At the height of the Chimú conquests, the language was spoken extensively from the Jequetepeque River in the north to the Carabayllo River in the south.
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. The name would thus mean, with the assumption of a metaphorical link between spinning and speech. Cerrón-Palomino, however, rejects this as a popular etymology.Salas García suggests that quingnam may mean in Quingnam, but the word for 'fisherman' in locations where Quingnam was spoken is recorded as guaxme, guachemin or uachime instead.
Another etymology can be derived from the name of a person named Quin Namo. This person is only mentioned in the Crónica de Ocxaguaman, although 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 language designations of the Spanish derive from personal names.
History
The Quingnam language became extinct shortly after the arrival of the conquistadors. The core Chimú city, Chan Chan, was in the vicinity of the new Spanish city of Trujillo and became overwhelmed by it, with people needing to pick up the language of the conquerors for trade and survival.Documentation
It is mentioned that a grammar, dictionary and other documents describing a language spoken in the Chicama Valley was created 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.A letter found during excavations at Magdalena de Cao Viejo in the El Brujo Archaeological Complex includes a list of decimal numerals which may be Quingnam, but they are not Mochica.
Quingnam and the ''lengua pescadora''
Fishermen along the Chimú coast were reported to have spoken a language called Lengua Pescadora by Spanish missionaries, and disambiguated as Yunga Pescadora by linguists; this may be 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".Vocabulary
Numerals
Below are numerals from an early 17th-century manuscript found at Magdalena de Cao. 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 other clues:The numerals tau, sut, canchen, and pachac are loanwords from a variety of Quechua II, being tawa, suqta, qanchis, and pachac respectively.