Guanche language

Guanche
Native toSpain
RegionCanary Islands
EthnicityGuanches
Extinct17th century
Language codes
ISO 639-3gnc
Glottologguan1277

Guanche is an extinct language or dialect continuum that was spoken by the Guanches of the Canary Islands until the 16th or 17th century. It died out after the conquest of the Canary Islands as the Guanche ethnic group was assimilated into the dominant Spanish culture. The Guanche language was probably a variety of the Berber languages and is known today through sentences and individual words that were recorded by early geographers, as well as through several place-names and some Guanche words that were retained in the Canary Islanders' Spanish.