Cacan

Cacán, also recorded as Kakán, Calchaquí or Diaguita, was the language of the Diaguita peoples of the Argentine northwest, with some authors placing it also in northern Chile. Its dialects diverged enough that Capayana needed interpreters for the Spaniards; the name Diaguita comes from a Cacán word meaning village inhabitant.

The language has no proven relatives. The Jesuit Alonso de Bárcena compiled a grammar of Cacán, but the manuscript is lost, leaving only short glosses and place names.

In the Calchaquí Wars of 1560 to 1667 the Diaguita confederation fought the Spanish Empire; defeat brought mass deportations and the depopulation of the Calchaquí valley, and the Quilmes, a Diaguita subtribe, were resettled near Buenos Aires. Cacán ceased to be spoken around the middle of the eighteenth century, living on chiefly in toponyms such as Animaná, which means sky place.