Subtiaba language


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, atl, pan.

Phonology

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. and < hr > were used in transcriptions to represent /ʂ/, a phonological correspondance shared with some local registers of Spanish and other Central American indigenous languages.

Lexicon

Subtiaba evidently had some loanwords from Mangue, a neighboring language only distantly related. These include chitú "cat", sidáa "rooster", ñusi "tiste", dagaba "frog/toad". 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

Lexical comparison from Native American Language Net:
EnglishSubtiabaTlapanec
Onei·mbamba1
Twoa·pu·a3hma3
Threea·sua2cu1
Fouraxkua2kho3
Manra·buša3bo3
Womanra·bagu·a'3go3
Dogru·wašu31
Sunahkaa3kha'3
Moonukugő'3
Wateri·lui2ya2

Note that Subtiaba represents /ʂ/.