Culle, also spelled Culli or Ilinga, was a poorly documented language of the Andean highlands of northern Peru, spoken across the regions of La Libertad, Cajamarca and Ancash. It is treated as a language isolate with no confirmed relatives among other languages of the Andes. The main surviving records come from an eighteenth-century manuscript compiled by the bishop Baltasar Jaime Martinez Companon and vocabulary gathered in 1934 by the linguist Paul Rivet from earlier sources; the language is generally considered to have gone extinct by the mid-twentieth century as Spanish and Quechua came to dominate the region, though some accounts raise the possibility of undocumented speakers in remote villages.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.