The extinct Hibito–Cholón or Cholónan languages form a proposed language family that links two languages of Peru, Hibito and Cholón. This family was believed to be extinct but in 2021 a native speaker was rediscovered, she is Martha Pérez Valderrama, she is currently the only known speaker of this family (specifically from the Cholón).[1][2] They may also be related to the extinct Culle language, and perhaps to the language of the Chachapoya, but the data for all of these languages is poor.
Several basic Hibito and Cholon words appear to be related, though the data on both languages is poor. The following examples are given in the ad hoc orthography of the three sources we have on these languages:
gloss
tree
water
daughter
son
Cholón
mech / meš
cot / quõt / köta
ñu / -ñu
pul / -pul
Hibito
mixs / mitš
cachi / otšj
ñoo
pool
Comparative word list of Hibito and Cholon from Loukotka (1949):[4]
^Loukotka, Čestmír. 1949. Sur Quelques Langues Inconnues de l'Amerique du Sud. Lingua Posnaniensis I: 53-82.
^ abTessmann, Günter. 1930. Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: grundlegende Forschungen für eine systematische Kulturkunde. Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter.
^Mata, Fr. Pedro de la. 1748. Arte de la lengua Cholona. Trujillo. Manuscript held at the British Museum in London. (Republished in Inca (1923), vol. 1, pp. 690-750. Lima.)
Alain Fabre, 2005, Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: CHOLÓN[1]