Maíz, tobaco, hamaca – these are some of the Taino words that made their way into the Spanish language.
Some vocabulary of dead languages continues to live in other languages. The language of the Tainos has been considered extinct since the mid-16th century. Nevertheless, many of today’s well-known words have come out of this language which has disappeared almost 500 years ago. Among the best known words are maíz (corn) and batata (sweet potato), plants that explorers and settlers urgently needed for their diet. But also tobacco (tobaco), hurricane (huracán), canoe (canoa), caiman (caimán) and barbecue (barbacoa) were taken over into Spanish. And one invention of the Taínos is still used all over the world: the hammock. The Spanish word “hamaca” comes from the Taíno language.
“In relation to the size of the group, the Taíno language has influenced the Spanish in America and many other languages very intensively,” says linguist Sabine Jansen, a professor at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, which reconstructed the idiom from ancient documents. The words spread over the reports of sailors and chroniclers, were first in Spanish, and later adopted in other languages.
Read the whole article (in German) here:
https://www.fau.de/files/2018/10/friedrich_2018.pdf
See as well the following article (in English) on 12 Taino words in the English language:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/62013/12-english-words-derived-extinct-caribbean-language
Photo: Granberry & Vescelius (2004) / The Decolonial Atlas
I’m a Taino/Spaniard
My daughter and cousin did our ancestry and we’re Taino and Spaniard.
I did not know Taino was another language and were forced to speak Spanish, why is that? How do I listen to their language? how will I know authenticity?
Hola Maria, Taíno is basically an extinct Arawakan language spoken by the Taíno people of the Caribbean. At the time of Spanish contact it was the most common language throughout the Caribbean. Taíno culture declined during Spanish colonization, and its language was replaced by Spanish and other European languages, such as English and French. Some Taíno words were absorbed into those languages like the ones mentioned in our post. In recent years, there have been efforts to reconstruct the Taíno language, focussing on “modern Taíno” since there is no uninterrupted line of native speakers. You can listen to it e.g. on the Youtube channel of Casa Areyto “Let’s talk Taíno” and other revitalization sources and podcasts.