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Mochica language

Mochica language
Mochica
Chimu, Yunga
Spoken in Perú
Extinct ca. 1920
Language family
Chimuan ?
  • Mochica
Language codes
ISO 639-3 omc

Mochica (also Yunga, Yunca, Chimú, Muchic, Mochika, Muchik, Chimu) is a Chimuan language formerly spoken along the northwest coast of Peru and in an inland village. First documented in 1607, the language was widely spoken in the area during the 17th and early 18th century. By the end of the 19th century the language was dying out and spoken only by a few people in the villages around Chiclayo. It died out as a spoken language around 1920, but certain words and phrases continued to be used up until the 1960s.

Mochica is typologically different from the other main languages on the west coast of South America (Quechua, Aymara, and Mapudungun) and contains rare features. These include

  • a case system where cases are built on each other in a linear sequence: the ablative suffix is added to the locative which itself is added to an oblique case form
  • all nouns have two stems, possessed and non-possessed
  • an agentive case suffix mainly used for the agent in passive clauses
  • a verbal system where all finite forms are formed with the copula.

Mochica appears to be a language isolate with no clear links to any other American Indian language.

External links



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