Chocoan languages

The Chocoan languages (also Choco, Chocó, Chokó) are a small family of Indigenous languages spread across Colombia and Panama.

Geographic
distributionColombia and Panama

Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families

Subdivisions

Emberá
Waunana–Cueva †
Unclassified:
  • Anserma
  • Arma †
  • Caramanta †

Glottologchoc1280

Quick facts Geographic distribution, Linguistic classification ...

Chocoan
Geographic distribution	Colombia and Panama
Linguistic classification	One of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions	Emberá Waunana–Cueva † Unclassified: • Anserma • Arma † • Caramanta †
Language codes
Glottolog	`choc1280`

Close

Poet and politician Eduardo Cote Lamus on his journey in Río San Juan (Choco, Colombia) in 1958 with some of the people speaking Choco languages

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
- Caramanta †
? 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
    - Embera Baudo
    - Embera Chami
    - Epena
  - Northern
    - Embera Katio
    - Embera Darien

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.

References

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.