Almost nothing is known of them, though a couple recorded words, along with a few toponyms, suggest they were not Arawakan or Cariban, the families of the attested languages of the Antilles.

No me acuerdo si diferían éstos en la lengua, como ha tantos años, y no hay hoy uno ni ninguno a quien lo preguntar, puesto que conversé hartas veces con ambas generaciones, y son pasados ya más de cincuenta años.

)Little else is known of the languages apart from the word for ‘gold’ in Ciguayo, tuob, mentioned in the sentence immediately preceding the first passage above: Aquí no llamaban caona al oro como en la primera parte desta isla, ni nozay como en la isleta de Guanahaní o San Salvador, sino tuob.

("Here they don't call gold caona, as in the first part of this island, nor nozay as in the islet of Guanahani or San Salvador, but tuob.

[3] Western Cuba is close enough to the Yucatán Peninsula for crossings by canoe at the time of the Conquest, and indeed a genetic study in 2020 suggested a Central American origin of the pre-Arawakan population.