Guanche language derived from Dravida?
introduction
observation: In what follows, we provide linguistic evidence that the Guanche language is very likely of Dravidian derivation, and not indeed Hamito-Semitic, as usually stated. The present article is intended to be read in connection with the one entitled: The Mysterious Origin of the Guanches, which also figures in the present Homepage. It is an extract of a vastly larger study of ours on this subject, which we are currently in the process of publishing. We would be delighted to discuss the matter with specialists or others who may be interested in it.
According to the Ethnologue Record, the Guanche language is affiliated to the Afro-Asiatic family. The language is now extinct, but several words and expressions are known and extant. Some authorities affirm a connection with the Berber tongue, a position questioned by many linguists.
Since the Guanches lived in almost perfect separation from Europe and Africa from very early epochs, their tongue provides a sort of “fossil” evidence for the very earliest form of the language spoken by the immigrating races that settled in Western Europe and northwestern Africa. Given the probable connection of the Guanches with the Celts and the Berbers, as well as other Aryan races, the problem of these Canarians assumes an enormous importance for the elucidation of human prehistory. Blond, blue-eyed natives are a rarity everywhere, so that the Guanches — who were still living in the Stone Age — present a fascinatingly unique field of study for anthropologists.
We have made the remarkable discovery that the Guanche language is closely related to the Dravidian family of languages of south India, both in grammar and in phonetics and etymology. This fact directly confirms our theory that the tall, blond, blue-eyed Aryans who later formed local races such as the Guanches, the Berbers, the Celts, and the Germans, indeed came in from the Indies, the true site of Atlantis. If this tentative discovery of ours is supported by further research and stands, a revolution will be on order for archaeology as a whole, and for linguistic archaeology in particular.
Ethnologists generally admit that languages afford the strongest evidence of close affinity, not necessarily ethnic, between different civilizations. The a priori probabilities of random coincidences between several words in the two languages under comparison are essentially nil, as we demonstrated elsewhere. Of course, random coincidences can always occur, and the evidence has to be corroborated by other independent proofs, as is the case with our proposal. But the probability of detailed coincidences such as those of the word lists we present below being purely random are unthinkably small, and must be explained in some other way.
A nation can adopt the language and even the religion of their conquerors. This was the case of the Guanches themselves, whose only language nowadays is Spanish, and whose official religion is Catholicism. But the coincidence proves that, at least, a close contact occurred in the past, and this has to be explained by viable theories. A mistake that that is often committed by amateur linguists is comparing just a very few instances of words between the two languages or, conversely, of making a more substantial listing of words of several different, obviously unrelated languages.
Random coincidences and borrowings can certainly occur, and the comparison has to be rather exhaustive in order to prove affiliation or former direct contact. Moreover, the respective etymologies must agree rather perfectly, and so must the corresponding pronunciations. Spelling is generally immaterial, particularly for illiterate tongues or for different alphabets. But the phonetic changes have to conform to certain fixed rules and to laws such as the ones known to linguists and philologists.
guanche word list
In what follows, we compare the several extant Guanche words to their Dravidian correspondents of identical etymology. The list is extensive, but not exhaustive. However, it can be considered representative, as it comprises all words that we could obtain in this first draft. The Dravidian equivalents were obtained from the excellent A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary of T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau (Oxford, 1984), the classical work on the matter.
We also attempt the interpretation of some Canarian toponyms and anthroponyms, a notoriously difficult task, given the obscurity of the two languages in question. But our results are rather encouraging and compelling, as can be seen by comparison. As we already said, the reader should pay attention to the phonetic correspondences only, disregarding the actual spelling, as a result of the Dravidian alphabet being different from the Roman one adopted for the Guanche language.
guanche – dravidian intercomparison (word list)
| Guanche | Guanche Meaning | Dravidian Etymology |
| Achaman | Heaven | ox-am-an (“the upper expanse”) |
| achanó | year | Ajja-no (“time division”) |
| achicaxna | plebs, people | Acchi-sagina (“lowly crowd”) |
| achimencey | king’s relative” (nobles) | acchi-menkay (“relatives of the king”) |
| Achit! | Long Live!; Hail! | Akchi, Agi-t- (“Hail”) |
| Achimayek | Mother, Grandmother | Acchi-mayi-ek (“Great Mother of God”) |
| Achoron | Earth | achurun (“marshy land”), ag-alam (“earth”) |
| ahico | leather shirt | ayi-kov (“breast cover”) 1 |
| ahof | milk | ay-ubi (“breast food” = milk) |
| amulán | lard, fat | Am-ullu (“liquid fat”) |
| ahoren | barley bread (gofio) | av-ari (av = “baked”, ari = “barley”) |
| añepa | scepter, royal staff | anne-pal (“royal staff”) |
| ara | goat | (k)ara , ar (“goat”) |
| armenine | pastures, grasslands | aram-meyni (“grazing field”) |
| banot | spear, javelin | ihpa-not (“sharp javelin”) |
| beñasmen | crop, harvest feast | panna-as-men (“ripe fruit cropping”) |
| bucio | conch trumpet | bug- (“flute”), pucci (“spurt of sound”) |
| cancha | dog | kunchi, kenchi (“red dog”) |
| ere | pool, pond | eri (pond) |
| ganigo | pot, jar | kann-iku (“water vessel”) |
| gofio | bread, flow | (g)uvi-u (“parched sweet cake”) |
| goro | corral | gor-o (“sheep pen”); kora (“corral”) |
| guan | man | gand (“hero”, “male”) |
| guanamene | prophet, seer | kan-amani (“father seer”) 2 |
| Guanar-teme | “King of the Nation” | Gan(d)-ak-tempe (idem) |
| Guañac | “Country”, “Nation” | Gan(d)-ak (“Land of the Heroes”) |
| guanil | loose cattle | kan-iyal (idem) |
| guayca | leather legging | kay-ka (“leg protection”) |
| gujon | vessel, ship | kuccham (“mast”) |
| hachichey | peas, beans | a-chik-kay (“edible beans”) |
| Haña | sheep (herd) | ana, kana (“flock”, “herd”) 3 |
| Guayota | the Devil | Kay-ota (“the Fiery Lord”) 4 |
| irichen | wheat, grain | arichi (“rice”, “grain”) |
| Magec | God (the Sun) | Mangeh (“Bull” = Shiva) 5 |
| mencey | king | menkay (“king”) |
| mocan | a type of fruit | manka (= Skt. mankan = “mango”) |
| Quevehi | “Your Highness” | Cevvai (“Your Highness”) |
| Sigoñe | “Captain”, “Chief” | Cek-kon (“Head Leader”) |
| tabone | knife (of obsidian) | tarpuni (“knife”, “blade”) |
| Tagoror | Council, Senate | Takkor (“worthy persons”, “senators”) |
| Tajaraste | Name of a dance | takcha-arasati (“royal dance”) |
| tamazanona | food (barley mixed with ground meat) | tam-acchana-anna (“food made of ground grain and chopped meat”) |
| Tamaragua | “Good Morning” | Itam-eruka (“Auspicious Morning”) |
| tamarco | goatskin (dress) | atta-makar (“goat skin”) |
| tano, taro | barley, grain | (t)aru (“grain”, “food”) |
| tenique | flexible mace | tanka, doni(k) (mace) |
| toya | fern (edible sprouts) | tai (“tender edible sprouts”) |
| teme | “king”(?) | tempe (“hero”, “chieftain”) |
| Vacaguaré! | “I prefer to die!” | Vaka-k-ari! (“I choose to die!”) 6 |
| xerco | sandals, shoes | cherpu (“sandals”, “shoes”) 7 |
| xaxo | mummy, corpse. | chacchu (“corpse”) |
notes on the word list:
1) The Dravidian v is usually pronounced like a w or a u.
2) Literally, a Brahman priest. The Sanskrit word derives from the Dravidian radix par meaning “eye” or “seer”, just as does the radix kan. The radix par also implies the idea of “guardian” or “shepherd” (Drav. para = Skt. pala), as well as that of “father”(pappan) and, hence, of “priest”.
3) This word corresponds to the Sanskrit gana (“flock”, “herd”). It also exists in Dravida under the form an, where both the final a and the initial k have been lost.
4) The Guanche Devil was an artificer of the sort of Hephaistos or Vulcanus. The god was believed to live inside the Teyde volcano, working at his infernal forges. This myth can be traced to India, with Vishvakarman being the archetype of all such smithing gods. Guayota is, as we comment in the main text, the alias of Maya, the Great Artificer who built Lanka, the archetype of sunken Paradises everywhere.
5) In the ancient world, the Supreme God was often equated to a bull, as the inseminator of the herd (the nation). Such was the case of Zeus, Dionysus, Poseidon, Baal, Osiris, and, in India, of Indra, Varuna, Shiva and many others. They were also identified to the sun and, more exactly, to the Fallen Sun.
6) The –k– is the usual Dravidian connective. Such is also apparently the case of the Guanche gu that corresponds to it here.
7) The change of p > c (or, rather, into k) is rather unexpected. However, it is frequent in Dravida, where the connective is indifferently either – pp – or –kk– or – tt -.
guanche toponyms and theonyms (tentative interpretation in dravida)
Note: The meaning of some of the below Guanche toponyms is unknown or uncertain. The Dravidian etymologies proposed for them are tentative, and are offered as evidence of the explanatory power of that language. The notes appended below explain the more complex attributions.
| Guanche | Etymology or Place | Dravidian Etymology |
| Acentejo | “Falling Waters” | A-cem-tiyu (“place where waters fall”) |
| Aguare | “Paradise”(a valley) | Akar-e (“Celestial Heights”) |
| Añaza | Name of a beach | Aniy-acha (“beautiful beach”) |
| Anaga | One of Tenerife’s Kingdoms | An-aka (“Supreme Abode”) 1 |
| Arautapola (Orotava) | Capital of Taoro Kindom | Arayata-poly (“Royal City”) 2 |
| Atidamane | Name of a great queen | Atti-tamman (“Mother of the People”) |
| Benahoare | “My Land” | (M)ena-(kh)aré (“My Country”) |
| Bimbache | A people from Hierro | Vin-bach (“Land of the Brave”) |
| Canarias | “Island of the Dogs” | Cham-ari (“Island of Cham”) 3 |
| Chenech (or Chinech or Achinech) | Local name of Tenerife | Che-nek (“Pure Land”) 4 |
| Echeyde (Teyde) | “The Luminous One” | Ecch-eyd or Chey-ide (“The White (or Fiery or Shiny) Mountain”) |
| Gomera | One of the Canaries | Gomeda (“Fat Cattle”) 5 |
| Guacimara | Name of a royal princess | Kaci-mara (“Golden Beauty”) |
| Guanche | (See note 6) | Cham-che (“The Golden Heroes”) 6 |
| Guan-Chenech | “Men of Chenek” (Guanches) | Gan(d)-che-nek (idem, see note 4) |
| Hero | Hierro, Ferro | Hiera (“Holy”); Iru(m) (“Iron”) 7 |
| Magec | The Sun (as God) | Mach-ek (“Dark Sun” = Vishnu) |
| Maxo | ? | Macchu (“Golden”) |
| Maxorata (or Majoreros) | Fuerte Ventura | Macchu-irata (“Golden Abode”) |
| Tacaronte | One of the ten Guanche realms | Ita-koruntu (“Land of Fat Cattle”) 8 |
| Tamaran | Gran Canaria | Ita-maram (“Land of Braves”) 9 |
| Taoro | Main kingdom of Tenerife | Ita-oru (“Land of Union”) 10 |
| Tenerife | “White Mountain” | Tin-eriv (“Shiny Mountain”) 11 |
notes on the tentative etymologies of guanches toponyms
1) Anaga was the northernmost kingdom of the island of Tenerife, and its shape roughly resembled a heart. Accordingly, the Dravidian An-aka embodies the two ideas. An means “supreme”, “uppermost” and, by extension, “northernmost”. Aka (or akam) means “home”, “abode”, “heart’, “bosom”, “innermost”. In contrast to the other kingdoms, all coastal, Anaga extended into, and encompassed the very heart of Tenerife’s interior.
2) The capital of Taoro was named Arautava or Arautapola, nowadays corrupted to Orotava. In Dravida, the radix poly, polly, palli, etc. expresses the idea of “gathering” and, hence, of “city”. This corresponds to the Greek polis and the Sanskrit pura meaning the same. Such is also the idea expressed by the suffix of Arautapola, the capital city of Taoro. The word “royal” (arayata) has form such as arayan, aranta, arahaua and arachan. It is from such forms that the Sanskrit raja (“king”) and the Latin rex, regis (idem) ultimately derive.
3) Pliny, in his Natural History, affirms that the name of “Canaria” derives from the many dogs found on the island (Canis, in Latin). This is an exoterism, and the name indeed derives from that of Cham, the patriarch of the Chamites (or Ethiopians), the fallen ones. In reality, the word Cham means precisely the same as “Ethiopian” or “burnt-faces”. The Dravidian etyms of the word Cham are highly enlightening. The word means both “artificer”, “smith”, “architect”, as well as “fallen”, destroyed”, “dead”, “terminated”. Both in Dravida and in the Biblical tradition, the name of Cham is also interpreted as meaning “dog”, “doggish”.
The suffix ari– of “Canary” means “island”, “cliff”, “rock”, in Dravida, and implies the idea of a sunken land whose peaks remained above the water. Hence, the Canaries are the Island of the Artificers who engendered Creation; the Fallen Angels or Nephelim, who “fell” (or died or were exterminated) at the end of their era, becoming damned dogs. In other words, the Guanches are “the People of Cham” (Guan-che or Cham-che), an etym (etymology)not unrelated to that of “Dog” and to that of the Canaries. (See Note 6, below).
4) The name of “Pure Land” is the traditional designation of places that, like the Canaries, have been equated to Paradise. Indeed, Chenok or Cham-ok (“Abode of the Chams”) means the same as “Canaries”, as seen in note 3) above. This name is a direct translation from the Sanskrit Sukhavati (or Shveta-dvipa, etc.), as we discuss elsewhere. The name of Chenech closely evokes the one of Chenoch, the first of all cities, founded by Cain (Gen. 4:17). The name of Chenoch (or Henoch or Enoch) is sometimes rendered as “Initial”. But this is essentially the same as “Foundation”, one of the many names of Paradise (Sutala) in India. In Dravida, either ek or ok mean “abode”, “city”, “house”.
5) Gomeda (or Gomeda-dvipa, the “Island of the Fat Cattle”) is the name of one of the seven dvipas (Paradisial islands) of the Hindus. The name of Gomeda plays on that of Gomedha, “the sacrifice of the bull”. Gomeda is also the some as Gomata (“rich in cattle”) and Govardhana (idem), two other paradisial cities of the Hindus. As we explain elsewhere, Gomeda-dvipa, the sunken “Island of the Fat Cattle”, is a name of the Hindu Paradise that served as a model for ours, as well as for Punt and for Plato’s Atlantis. The Dravidian d, when cerebral, often changes into an r, as was the case here.
6) The precise etym of the word “Guanche” and its relationship with the other Chamitic (or “Solar”) races has been explained in detail in our article on the Guanches in this Homepage. The word is composed of the radices guan and che, which correspond to the Dravida ones cham and che. Cham means “golden”, “coppery”, ” red”, “solar”, “fiery”, “flaming”, and embodies the idea of “purified by fire”, as in the name of the Ethiopians. The expression “Purified by Fire” is a metaphor for “gold” and for the Golden Races of Cham in India. It has also to do with the Cathars (or “Pures”) as we explain elsewhere.
As we said in note 3 above, the name of “Cham” also means “dog” and, more exactly the wild red dog of the Indies, the Cuon alpinus. Hence, the play on words of Pliny, deriving the name of the Canaries (and, indirectly, of the Guanches) “from the multitude of dogs that inhabit these islands”. Likewise, the Dravidian suffix che, related to words such as the Latin gens (“noble people”) means “nobles’, “heroes”, “kings”, “majesties”. It is the Dravidian equivalent of the Sanskrit Rajaputras (“Sons of Kings”), the very name given to the Kshatryas or “Reds”, that is, the ruddy races of Cham. The “Chams” or “Reds” are the decayed golden races of Atlantis who eventually became vicious, as told by Plato.
7) Hiera (“Holy”, in Greek) is the name of a famous mysterious island in antiquity. Hiera is often identified with Ireland (Eire = Hiera). But this is sheer exoterism. Several other islands were also erroneously called Hiera in antiquity. One such is Thermessa (or Vulcano) near Sicily and the Etna volcano. Thermessa was reputed to be the abode of Vulcanus (Hephaistos), the infernal volcanic god of the Greeks and Romans. Hiera is mentioned by Avienus (Ora, 108), who places it next to Tartessos, another legendary island of the Outer Ocean, the world-encircling ocean of the ancients.
Every volcanic island tended to be confused with the Atlantean ones or with their aliases, the Islands of the Blest. Such was the case of the Canaries and, also, of Sicily and Thermessa, as well as of England and Ireland. The English word “iron” has no sure etymology, and very likely derives from the Dravida iru or irum meaning the dark metal. Apparently the Portuguese knew the true etymology of the local name when they renamed it “Ferro” (later Hierro, “Iron” in Spanish). It is curious that the Guanches would have the word for “iron”, a metal they did not have. The fact that their word for it is Dravidian can only be explained by postulating a contact between the two nations in prehistoric times. And these times can only have been those of Atlantis. What others?
8) The name of Tacaronte, if interpreted in Dravida as here, apparently corresponds to the one of Gomera (see note 5 above).
9) Ita-maram (Tamaran), “the Land of the Brave” corresponds to the name of Vin-bach (Bimbache) or Hierro. The Guanches were fierce combatants, and resisted the Spanish conquest down to the last man. Canarian wrestling is famous even today, and was originally used to train the Guanche warriors for battle.
10) Taoro was the chief of the nine realms of Tenerife. It occupied its best lands, in the most sheltered region of the island. Oru implies the idea of “oneness” and, hence, of “union”, “harmony”, “single-mindedness”, “leadership”. All such etyms express the idea of Taoro as the leading realm of Tenerife, the one which insured peace and harmony for all the ten regions of the island.
11) The name of Tenerife, which we encounter in the two forms, just as in Dravida, seems to be an allusion to the Teyde volcano, the main feature of the island. This volcano was, by the natives, equated to Mt. Atlas, as we discuss in our accompanying text on the Guanches. In Dravida, the idea of “white” is synonymous with “shiny”, as instanced here.
The Teyde volcano is snow-capped, and the etym is often interpreted as an allusion to this fact. But the main reason is the shiny lava that illuminates its active volcanic peak. Compare the etymology of Teyde in the above list (s. v. Echeyde). The Dravidian etyms can also be interpreted as an allusion to the Fallen Mountain (Ecch-eytt), that is, to Mt. Atlas which the mountain replicates.
conclusion
Several phonetic laws, some akin to Grimms’ Law, can be observed from the above Word List when passing from the Dravida to the Guanche languages. It is amazing that the two families of tongues — separated by a huge gap in both time and space — still resemble each other so closely. The explanation of this remarkable fact certainly results from the circumstance that both races were fairly well sheltered from alien contact and influence, the Dravidas down to the present and the Guanches down to the extinction of their culture, at the end of the 15th century.
Further research on the true affiliation of the Guanche tongue — now that a new inroad has been discovered — is certainly required in the matter. If our tentative discovery proves to be real indeed, it can perhaps revolutionize human prehistory as a whole and, particularly, that of Europe itself. The origin of the Aryan races is perhaps the most puzzling of all ancient enigmas. It is one that is far from solved, despite the statements to the contrary on the part of certain anthropologists. The siting of their primeval homeland in the Caucasus or in Central Asia are purely illusory, and have been refuted by the most competent of anthropologists and philologists.
According to our theory, the Aryans are the blond, blue-eyed, tall races of Java and Sumatra, the Yavanas or Yonas. These are also the same as the Seres (or Pious Ethiopians or Hyperboreans) of Pliny, Solinus, and other ancient authorities. The ancients knew far better than us the meaning of their old myths and traditions, for they had access to many holy books now lost due to the fanatic book burnings that attended the birth of Christianism. So, the Aryans are apparently originary from the Indies and seem to have reached Europe, at least in part, via the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans and the rounding of Africa. Other Aryan nations came, in several waves along the centuries, by land, across Asia, North Africa and the Levant, or across the Indian Ocean and the pristine Suez Canal, before it was permanently closed by the ancient Egyptians.
Interestingly enough, the present theory of ours tends to support the early traditions concerning the immigrations to Europe via the ocean and across straits that were later closed, led by heroes such as Hercules and Aeneas. These traditions survive in sagas like those of Virgil’s Aenead and Orpheus’ Argonautica, not to mention Plato’s Atlantis and the relations of the Celts and of Genesis. As we see, the Bible is indeed right, but in a far different way than thereto suspected. And the reason why the Bible and the ancient traditions were written in the form of myths is easy to understand. This was done in order to avoid the tampering and falsification of the historical relations, as is so often the case. What is not understood can hardly be adulterated in any coherent way.
Among the phonetic rules that transpire from the above Word List, we note that, in passing from Dravida to Guanche, the terminal consonants such as r, l and n are usually lost. This loss can be observed in pairs such as añepa / annepal; ahico / ayikov; guan / gand; ayi-ub / ahof, etc.. Another observable regular change is that of Dravidian u into Guanche o, as in acemtiyu / acentejo; guviu / gofio; etc.. Other changes seem to be k> gu; k> h; a> i; m> n; final e or i> ek or ik; a > e;b or v> f or h; p > b or, sometimes, p> c.
All in all, these changes are rather minor, and are amply attested in other languages, as well as within Dravida itself. Moreover, they can be due to poor phonetic transcription or, even, be the result of Spanish influence upon the residual Guanche population that remained in the islands after the conquest. In brief, the coincidence between Dravida and Guanche is far too close to be dismissed casually. The honest, open-minded anthropologist or linguist cannot simply ignore this find which is, moreover, amply supported by all sorts of independent anthropological evidence. For more on this, see the accompanying article in our page entitled: “The Mysterious Origin of the Guanches“.
