Puquina, also spelled Pukina, is an extinct language once spoken in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia and in northern Chile, associated with the Tiwanaku culture and later recognized as one of the official languages of colonial Bolivia. It is usually classified as a language isolate, forming its own one-member family within the genealogical scheme of South American languages, with no other language yet demonstrated to be related to it; a small number of people, several hundred by recent Bolivian census figures concentrated in areas such as Pelechuco municipality, have reported some knowledge of it even though the language is considered extinct as a community language.
Facts
RegionAround Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia, and in northern Chile. 1 Speaker Count2024 Bolivian census figure for self-reported Puquina speakers; the language is otherwise extinct as a first language, with a small revival effort underway. Proto-Language StatusPuquina is treated in the literature as a single extinct language rather than a family with reconstructed daughter branches; grammatical and lexical work draws on the 1607 Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum rather than a comparative proto-language reconstruction. 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Puquina language
WikipediaIntroduction, first sentence
Puquina (or Pukina) is an extinct language once spoken in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia) and in the north of Chile.
History, Documentation section
The primary source for Puquina is the Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum, a 1607 book by Luis Jerónimo de Oré
Introduction, fourth sentence
A total of 311 Bolivians reported speaking Puquina in the 2024 census.
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