Purepecha

Purepecha, called Tarascan in older Spanish sources, is a language isolate spoken in the highlands of Michoacan around Lake Patzcuaro. It was the tongue of the Purepecha Empire, which according to the Relacion de Michoacan took shape around 1300, when the Uacusecha leader Tariacuri united the lakeside communities. His successors expanded the state and fought wars with the Aztec Empire in the fifteenth century.

At the Spanish conquest the ruler Tangaxuan II submitted, but Nuno de Guzman had him executed; bishop Vasco de Quiroga then founded hospital towns such as Santa Fe de la Laguna where Purepecha speakers kept a degree of protection.

Franciscan friars gave the language a Latin alphabet, and Maturino Gilberti printed a grammar in 1558 and a dictionary in 1559, followed by the grammar and dictionary of Juan Bautista de Lagunas in 1574. Colonial records include confessionaries, land titles and chronicles.