Brinton.l 24 J [NOV. 21, 



Note on the Puquina Language of Peru. 



By Daniel G. Brinton, M.D. 

 {Read before the American Philosophical Society, November 21, 



When the monarchy of ancient Peru, extending nearly two 

 thousand miles along the Pacific coast, succumbed to the Spanish 

 soldiery, it was found to be peopled by diverse tribes, speaking 

 many dialects. These, however, belonged to but a few linguistic 

 stocks, and both the missionaries and civil functionaries soon came 

 to recognize three or four tongues, as "general languages," lenguas 

 generates, throughout this wide area. In an official report dated in 

 1582, these were spoken of as three in number, the Kechua, the 

 Aymara, and the Puquina* The learned missionary, Father Gero- 

 nimo de Ore, writing a few years later, makes the number four, 

 adding the Yunca to the three already given. 



We have a very fair knowledge, by means of grammars and vo- 

 cabularies, of the Kechua, the Aymara, and the Yunca ; but up to 

 the present time have had practically no information about the Pu- 

 quina. The only specimen of it in modern treatises is the Lord's 

 Prayer, printed by Hervas, in his Saggio Pratico, and copied by 

 Adelung in the Mithridates.\ On this specimen Hervas based the 

 opinion that the Puquina was radically different from any other 

 known American tongue. Mr. Clement L. Markham, on the other 

 hand, denied this, and pronounced the Puquina " a very rude dia- 

 lect of the Lupaca," and a member of the same linguistic stock as 

 the Kechua j; The editors of the Mithridates seemed to incline to 

 this view, as they laid stress on some similarities to the Aymara dia- 

 lects (of which the Lupaca is one). Von Tschudi also adopts it in 

 his learned work on the Kechua. 



None of these authorities had any other material to go upon than 

 the Pater Noster referred to. They speak of it as the only known 

 specimen of the tongue. Hervas credits it to a work of Geronimo 

 de Ore, the missionary already mentioned, which it is evident that 

 neither he nor any other of the writers named had ever seen. This 

 work is the Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum, published at Naples in 



* Relaciones Geograflcas de Indias, Peru. Tome 1, p. 82 (Madrid, 1881). 



t Mithridates, Theil iii, Abth. ii, s. 548-550. 



I Markham, in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1871, p. 305. 



g J. J. von Tschudi, Organismus der Ketscliua Sprache, a. 76 (Leipzig, 1884). 



