Huarpic

Huarpic refers to a historical grouping of languages associated with the Huarpe (Huarpes) people of the western region of what is now Argentina, with ties to areas that lie near the Andes and into adjacent parts of Chile. The term is used by linguists to describe a small, likely independent language family once spoken in the Cuyo region and surrounding territories. Documentation of Huarpic languages is fragmentary, coming mainly from a limited number of colonial-era sources and missionary records from the 17th to 19th centuries.

Classification within Huarpic is uncertain, and the internal relationships of the languages are not well established. Traditionally, it has been treated as a small family with a few varieties that may have been separate languages or dialects, sometimes referred to as Western and Eastern Huarpe in older literature. Some proposals have suggested deeper connections to other South American language groups, but these links remain speculative and are not widely accepted by scholars.

Geographically, the Huarpe peoples occupied territories in the Andean foothills and adjacent plains, with social and cultural networks that influenced language use and transmission. The impact of European colonization, including disease, displacement, and forced assimilation, contributed to rapid language shift. Consequently, Huarpic languages are generally regarded as extinct or critically endangered, and most knowledge about them rests on historical descriptions, word lists, and short texts rather than active, living communities.

See also: Huarpe people; Indigenous languages of the Americas; Language families of the Americas.