Idioma taíno
El taíno es una lengua indígena de la familia arawak que se habló en las Antillas y que actualmente se encuentra extinta. Era la lengua principal en el archipiélago a la llegada de los europeos, se hablaba en todas las Antillas Mayores, en las Bahamas, en los cayos de Florida y en varias pequeñas islas del arco oriental del mar Caribe.
Los taínos, hablantes de la lengua homónima, avanzaron desde el oriente de Venezuela hacia el noroeste siguiendo la cadena insular caribeña, desplazando o reduciendo a los pobladores anteriores como los guanajatabeyes en el occidente de Cuba y los ciguayos y mazorijes en La Española. Durante la época del contacto con los españoles, los taínos orientales estaban en conflicto con los caribes.
Aunque no hay un registro importante de la lengua taína, en la actualidad existen intentos por reconstruir y recuperar la lengua a través del vocabulario que ha sobrevivido y utilizando como base la gramática de lenguas cercanas como el guajiro y el garífuna.
El artículo en inglés (lectura paralela, no traducción)The English article (a parallel reading, not a translation)
Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language spoken by the Taíno people of the Caribbean. At the time of Spanish contact it was the most common language spoken throughout the Caribbean. Classic Taíno, or Taíno proper, was the Indigenous language of the peoples living in most of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico (known as Boriquen), most of Hispaniola (known as Ayiti), and easternmost Cuba. The Ciboney dialect is essentially unattested, but colonial sources suggest that it was very similar to the Lucayan dialects of the Bahamas and to Classic Taíno, and was spoken in central Cuba, parts of western Hispaniola, and possibly Jamaica.
By the late 15th century, Taíno had displaced earlier languages of the Greater Antilles, except in westernmost Cuba and in pockets in Hispaniola. (See Indigenous languages of the Caribbean § Unclassified languages.) As the Taíno culture declined during Spanish colonization, the language was replaced by Spanish, English and French. Although the language declined drastically due to colonization, some Taíno words were absorbed into those languages. As the first Indigenous language encountered by Europeans in the Americas, it was a major source of new words borrowed into European languages.
There are several ongoing projects to construct a modern Neo-Taíno language.