Guanche

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As Guanche in to popular science literature , the extinct languages of the Natives called. These languages ​​of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands are assigned to the Berber languages .

designation

The entirety of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the Canary Islands is scientifically known as the Old Canarians. Guanches were just the inhabitants of Tenerife . They were the largest group of people in the archipelago and were the longest able to withstand the conquest, commissioned by the Crown of Castile in the 15th century. Therefore, in popular scientific literature, the term Guanches is used for all indigenous people of the islands of the archipelago. This means that the languages ​​of the inhabitants of the other Canary Islands are often grouped together under the collective term Guanche. In the Spanish-language specialist literature, the terms Old Languages ​​of the Canaries (antiguas hablas de Canarias) or Amazigh of the Canary Islands (amazighe insular) are sometimes used.

Tradition of the ancient Canarian languages

In the middle of the 14th century on the island of Gran Canaria, the first, at that time still peaceful missionary undertakings of Mallorcan priests and monks, indigenous people who had come to Mallorca as slaves were used as interpreters. They had been instructed in the Christian faith, baptized and released to do missionary work with their people. They remained illiterate and did not leave any written information.

While the then Archbishop of Granada Hernando de Talavera promoted a textbook of the Arabic language for the conversion of the Arabic-speaking population at the beginning of the 16th century and grammars and dictionaries of the languages ​​of the indigenous population were written in America, especially by the Jesuits for reasons of proselytizing, this does not seem to have been the case in the Canary Islands. Because of the quick linguistic and cultural integration of the old Canarians into the society newly created by the Christian conquerors, the missionaries apparently did not consider it necessary to deal with the language or languages ​​of the indigenous people.

The Old Canarians themselves left no written records. The information about the languages ​​is handed down through reports from the time of discovery and conquest. Everything that is known about the languages ​​was initially documented according to the reproduction of sounds of the French, later the Castilian language. With one exception, the reports did not expressly describe the language; instead, personal names, place names or terms were given in the corresponding language.

Origin of languages

Comparisons of traditional words in the languages ​​of the indigenous people with the languages ​​still used today by the Berber peoples of North Africa show similarities. This, as well as genetic studies of the bones found on the islands, indicate that the indigenous people came from North Africa.

The population of the seven islands had seven different languages. This resulted from the separate development and the lack of contact between the populations of the individual islands for more than a thousand years. The languages ​​were so different that at the beginning of the conquest the translators from one island could not be used as translators on another island. According to historians, historical accounts in which it is claimed that the languages ​​are the same can be traced back to the fact that the reporters did not compare two speakers, but rather judged the equality on each island separately according to the similarity of the sound.

Remnants of language still present today

After the Canary Islands were incorporated into the kingdoms of the Crown of Castile and the forced assimilation of the indigenous population in the 15th century, the languages ​​disappeared by the end of the 16th century at the latest.

Today's linguistic usage in the Canary Islands contains a number of “guanchismos”, terms that are derived from the languages ​​of the indigenous people. 55% of these are place names, 23% names of persons and 17% names of objects.

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On the Canary Islands, characters carved into stone have been found in various places that resemble the characters in the Libyan script . These are not continuous texts, but individual words, the meaning of which is controversial. It can therefore not be said that the Old Canarians left written information.

The story of the settlement of the population with the tongues cut off

In the Chronicle Le Canarien , which reports on the conquest of the Canary Islands at the beginning of the 15th century, there is information about the language of the inhabitants of the island of La Gomera. It is reported that the inhabitants of this island spoke only with their lips, as if they had no tongue, and that they said that a great prince brought them here for a crime and ordered that their tongues be cut off. Various historians dispute the authenticity of this story. It is assumed that an older story was reproduced here at Le Canarien and that it was not the authors' own findings. There is no evidence in the history of the countries that could have carried out such an operation to the islands of an entire people who were punished with cutting their tongues. According to historians, the story of the cut tongues provides a conclusive explanation for the origin of the Silbo Gomero communication system used today .

literature

  • Dominik Josef Wölfel : Monumenta linguae canariae . Academic printing and Verl.-Anst., Graz 1965 ( [7] [accessed on January 31, 2017]).

Web links

Wiktionary: Guanche  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A. José Farrujia de la Rosa, Werner Pichler, Alain Rodrigue, Sergio García Marín: Written in stones. The ancient colonization of the Canary Islands . In: Journal of iberian archeology . No. 12 . ADECAP, 2009, ISSN  0874-2677 , p. 23–40 (English, dialnet.unirioja.es [accessed April 27, 2019]).
  2. ^ Maarten Kossmann: Berber subclassification. (pdf) Leiden University, 2011, p. 6 , accessed on February 5, 2017 (en).
  3. ^ Ignacio Reyes García: Balance de lingüística ínsuloamazighe. (pdf) Cabildo de Lanzarote, 2008, accessed on December 14, 2018 (Spanish).
  4. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: El obispado de Telde . Misioneros mallorquines y catalanes en el Atlántico. Ed .: Ayuntamiento de Telde Gobierno de Canarias. 2nd Edition. Gobierno de Canarias, Madrid, Telde 1986, ISBN 84-505-3921-8 , pp. 52 (it).
  5. ↑ Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada: Fray Hernando de Talavera en 1492 . In: Chronica nova: Revista de historia moderna de la Universidad de Granada . No. 34 , 2008, ISSN  0210-9611 , p. 261 (Spanish, full text download from the Dialnet Foundation website [accessed on February 2, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Henrike Foertsch: Language work between theory and practice . In: Reinhard Wendt (ed.): Paths through Babylon: Missionaries, language studies and intercultural communication . Narr Francke Attempto, 2001, ISBN 978-3-8233-5414-7 , p. 76 .
  7. ↑ Dominik Josef Wölfel: Monumenta linguae canariae . Academic printing and Verl.-Anst., Graz 1965, p. 13 ( [1] [accessed January 31, 2017]).
  8. ↑ Dominik Josef Wölfel: Monumenta linguae canariae . Academic printing and Verl.-Anst., Graz 1965, p. 12 ff . ( [2] [accessed January 31, 2017]).
  9. ↑ Maximiano Trapero: Problemas de bilingüismo histórico en la toponimia de Canarias . In: Alegría Alonso González (ed.): Actas del III Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española: Salamanca, 22-27 de noviembre de 1993 . 1996, ISBN 84-7635-182-8 , pp. 1110 ( [3] [PDF; accessed July 28, 2016] es).
  10. ↑ Maximiano Trapero: Problemas de bilingüismo histórico en la toponimia de Canarias . In: Alegría Alonso González (ed.): Actas del III Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española: Salamanca, 22-27 de noviembre de 1993 . 1996, ISBN 84-7635-182-8 , pp. 1113 ( [4] [PDF; accessed July 28, 2016] es).
  11. ↑ Juan Francisco Navarro Mederos: The original inhabitants (=  everything about the Canary Islands ). Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria, o.O. (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife) 2006, ISBN 84-7926-541-8 , p. 28 .
  12. ↑ A. José Farrujia de la Rosa, María del Carmen del Arco Aguilar: La leyenda del poblamiento de Canarias por africanos de lenguas cortadas - génesis, contextualización e inviabilidad arqueológica de un relato ideado en la segunda mitad del siglo XIV . In: Tabona: Revista de prehistoria y de arqueología . No. 11 , 2002, ISSN  0213-2818 , p. 56 (Spanish, [5] [accessed February 7, 2017]).
  13. ↑ Juan Álvarez Delgado: Leyenda erudita sobre la población de Canarias con africanos de lenguas cortadas . In: Anuario de estudios atlánticos . No. 23 , 1977, ISSN  0570-4065 , pp. 57 (Spanish, [6] [accessed February 7, 2017]).