Language of the Voiceless: Traces of Taino Language, Food, and Culture in the Americas From 1492 to the Present

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linguistic registry or linguistic certainty that the word “police” encloses in our own
experience. Therefore, this use by Diaz del Castillo could at least sustain the argument
that this Taino word, preceded by the definite article, was employed in the text from the
familiarity of the writer with the term.
Surprisingly, and unlike many of the other Taino words that survive to this day,
such as canoe, hammock, tobacco, ceiba, barbeque, hurricane, cay, manatee, etc. this
word’s usage was very short-lived. In fact, it seems to have disappeared right before
Spanish the conquest of the Philippines. Some of its final usages can be found in Alvar
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicles. After that, its use is seldom employed. However,
what is important is its place as a testament of Taino presence in the chronicles of the
New Spain.
Conclusion
Language theory states that language survival is proportional to the number of
speakers, that population size can play a crucial role in the evolution of languages, and
that language size, proportionally relates to the creation of its basic derivative called,
culture 195 . In other words, language and culture only exist if there are people to speak it,
revive it and modify it. Otherwise, it becomes a mute symbol carved in stone, a silent
testament to the unknown, like the Etruscan, Raetic, Thracian, Vandalic, Gaulish,
Sumerian, and so many other cultures, whose language extinction forever sealed their
perception of the world from our grasp.
195
(Levinson SC, 2012)