
The Chocoan languages (also Choco, Chocó, Chokó) are a small family of Indigenous languages spread across Colombia and Panama.
Family division
Chocoan consists of two known branches and at least four unclassified languages.
- The Emberá languages (Chocó proper, Cholo)
- Wounaan (Noanamá, Waunana, Woun Meu)–Cueva †
- ?Sinúfana (Cenufara) †
- Anserma
- ? Arma †
At least Arma, Cueva and Caramanta are extinct.
The Emberá group consists of two languages mainly in Colombia with over 60,000 speakers that lie within a fairly mutually intelligible dialect continuum. Ethnologue divides this into six languages. Kaufman (1994) considers the term Cholo to be vague and condescending. Noanamá has some 6,000 speakers on the Panama-Colombia border.
Jolkesky (2016)
Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):[1]
- Choko
- Waunana
- Embera
- Southern
- Northern
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Guahibo, Kamsa, Paez, Tukano, Witoto-Okaina, Yaruro, Chibchan, and Bora-Muinane language families due to contact.[1]
Genetic links between Choco and Chibchan had been proposed by Lehmann (1920).[2] However, similarities are few, some of which may be related to the adoption of maize cultivation from neighbors.[1]: 324
Genetic relations
Choco has been included in a number of hypothetical phylum relationships:
- within Morris Swadesh‘s Macro-Leco
- Antonio Tovar, Jorge A. Suárez, and Robert Gunn: related to Cariban
- Čestmír Loukotka (1944): Southern Emberá may be related to Paezan, Noanamá to Arawakan
- within Paul Rivet and Loukotka’s (1950) Cariban
- Constenla Umaña and Margery Peña: may be related to Chibchan
- within Joseph Greenberg‘s Nuclear Paezan, most closely related to Paezan and Barbacoan
- with Yaruro according to Pache (2016)[3]
Proto-language
For reconstructions of Proto-Chocó and Proto-Emberá by Constenla and Margery (1991),[4] see the corresponding Spanish article.
See also
- Embera-Wounaan, who speak the Choco languages, Embera and Wounaan
- Quimbaya language
References
- ^ a b c Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Brasília.
- ^ Lehmann, W. (1920). Zentral-Amerika. Teil I. Die Sprachen Zentral-Amerikas in ihren Beziehungen zueinander sowie zu Süd-Amerika und Mexico. Berlin: Reimer.
- ^ Pache, Matthias J. 2016. Pumé (Yaruro) and Chocoan: Evidence for a New Genealogical Link in Northern South America. Language Dynamics and Change 6 (2016) 99–155. doi:10.1163/22105832-00601001
- ^ Constenla Umaña, Adolfo; Margery Peña, Enrique. (1991). Elementos de fonología comparada Chocó. Filología y lingüística, 17, 137-191.
Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Constenla Umaña, Adolfo; & Margery Peña, Enrique. (1991). Elementos de fonología comparada Chocó. Filología y lingüística, 17, 137-191.
- Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Gunn, Robert D. (Ed.). (1980). Claificación de los idiomas indígenas de Panamá, con un vocabulario comparativo de los mismos. Lenguas de Panamá (No. 7). Panama: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
- Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70414-3.
- Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world’s languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
- Loewen, Jacob. (1963). Choco I & Choco II. International Journal of American Linguistics, 29.
- Licht, Daniel Aguirre. (1999). Embera. Languages of the world/materials 208. LINCOM.
- Mortensen, Charles A. (1999). A reference grammar of the Northern Embera languages. Studies in the languages of Colombia (No.7); SIL publications in linguistics (No. 134). SIL.
- Pinto García, C. (1974/1978). Los indios katíos: su cultura – su lengua. Medellín: Editorial Gran-América.
- Rendón G., G. (2011). La lengua Umbra: Descubrimiento – Endolingüística – Arqueolingüística. Manizales: Zapata.
- Rivet, Paul; & Loukotka, Cestmír. (1950). Langues d’Amêrique du sud et des Antilles. In A. Meillet & M. Cohen (Eds.), Les langues du monde (Vol. 2). Paris: Champion.
- Sara, S. I. (2002). A tri-lingual dictionary of Emberá-English-Spanish. (Languages of the World/Dictionaries, 38). Munich: Lincom Europa.
- Suárez, Jorge. (1974). South American Indian languages. The new Encyclopædia Britannica (15th ed.). Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
- Swadesh, Morris. (1959). Mapas de clasificación lingüística de México y las Américas. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
- Tovar, Antonio; & Larrucea de Tovar, Consuelo. (1984). Catálogo de las lenguas de América del Sur (nueva ed.). Madrid: Editorial Gedos. ISBN 84-249-0957-7.
External links
- Proel: Familia Chocó