Ethnicity Macorix ISO 639-3 None (mis) | Extinct 16th century | |
 | ||
Native to Dominican Republic, possibly neighboring Haiti Region two populations: northern coast, borthering the Peninsula of Samaná Language family unclassified
(one of the pre-Arawakan languages of the Greater Antilles) | ||
Macorix (also rendered Macorís and Mazorij) was the language of the northern coast of what is today the Dominican Republic. Spanish accounts only refer to three languages on the island: Taino, Macorix, and neighboring Ciguayo. The Macorix people appear to have been semi-sedentary and their presence seems to have predated the agricultural Taino who came to occupied much of the island. For the early European writers, they shared similarities with the nearby Ciguayos. Their language appears to have been moribund at the time of the Spanish Conquest, and within a century it was extinct.
Little is known of Macorix apart from it being a distinct language from Taino and neighboring Ciguayo. A negative form, baeza [baˈesa], is the only element of the language that is directly attested. Baeza could be Arawakan (though not Taino or Iñeri), analyzable as ba-ésa 'no-thing' = 'nothing'. (Cf. Manao ma-esa 'no, not', Paresis ma-isa 'not'. The negative prefix is ba- in Amarakaeri which, even if it is related to the Arawakan languages, is not close enough to be relevant here.)
Therre are also some non-Taino toponyms from the area that Granberry & Vescelius (2004) suggest may be Waroid:
(Cf. a similar list at Guanahatabey language.)