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Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families, as well as a number of extinct languages that are unclassified because of a lack of data.
The Chibchan languages make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The name is derived from the name of an extinct language called Chibcha or Muysccubun, once spoken by the people who lived on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of which the city of Bogotá was the southern capital at the time of the Spanish Conquista. However, genetic and linguistic data now indicate that the original heart of Chibchan languages and Chibchan-speaking peoples might not have been in Colombia, but in the area of the Costa Rica-Panama border, where the greatest variety of Chibchan languages has been identified.
The Choco languages are a small family of Native American languages spread across Colombia and Panama.
This is a list of different language classification proposals developed for the indigenous languages of the Americas. The article is divided into North, Central, and South America sections; however, the classifications do not correspond to these divisions.
The Chonan languages are a family of indigenous American languages which were spoken in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. Two Chon languages are well attested: Selk'nam, spoken by the people of the same name who occupied territory in the northeast of Tierra del Fuego; and Tehuelche spoken by the people of the same name who occupied territory north of Tierra del Fuego. The name 'Chon', or Tshon, is a blend of 'Tehuelche' and 'Ona'.
Barbacoan is a language family spoken in Colombia and Ecuador.
Paezan may be any of several hypothetical or obsolete language-family proposals of Colombia and Ecuador named after the Paez language.
Chimuan or Yuncan is a hypothetical small extinct language family of northern Peru and Ecuador.
The Aimoré, Botocudoan or Borum languages, now sometimes known as Krenakan after the last one remaining, are a branch of the Macro-Jê languages - spoken mainly in Brazil - including moribund Krenak and extinct languages such as Guerén and Nakrehé. Loukotka (1968) considered them dialects of a single language, but more recent treatments describe at least some of them as separate languages.
The Tiniwan languages are two extinct and one moribund language of Colombia that form a small family.
Otomaco and Taparita are two long-extinct languages of the Venezuelan Llanos.
The Marañón River basin, at a low point in the Andes which made it an attractive location for trade between the Inca Empire and the Amazon basin, once harbored numerous languages which have been poorly attested or not attested at all. Those of the middle reaches of the river, above the Amazon basin, were replaced in historical times by Aguaruna, a Jivaroan language from the Amazon which is still spoken there. The languages further upriver are difficult to identify, due to lack of data. The region was multilingual at the time of the Conquest, and the people largely switched to Spanish rather than to Quechua, though Quechua also expanded during Colonial times.
Puruhá and Campbell (2012) is a poorly attested extinct language of the Marañón River basin in Ecuador which is difficult to classify, apart from being apparently related to Cañari, though it may have been Barbacoan.
Anserma (Anserna) is an extinct Chocoan language of Colombia. Dialects included Caramanta and Cartama.
Muellama (Muellamués) is an extinct Barbacoan language of Colombia.
Spurious languages are languages that have been reported as existing in reputable works, while other research has reported that the language in question did not exist. Some spurious languages have been proven to not exist. Others have very little evidence supporting their existence, and have been dismissed in later scholarship. Others still are of uncertain existence due to limited research.
Humahuaca (Omaguaca) is an extinct language of Argentina. Tribal and possibly dialect divisions were Fiscara, Jujuy, Ocloya, Osa, Purmamarca, and Tiliar. Mason (1950) proposed that Humahuaca was related to Diaguita (Cacán) and Kunza in a group he called "Ataguitan".
The indigenous languages of South America are those whose origin dates back to the pre-Columbian era. The subcontinent has great linguistic diversity, but, as the number of speakers of indigenous languages is diminishing, it is estimated that it could become one of the least linguistically diverse regions of the planet.
References
- ↑ "Request Number 2019-019 for Change to ISO 639-3 Language Code" (PDF). SIL International. 2019-03-04. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
- ↑ Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages . Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center. p. 247.
- ↑ Campbell, Lyle (2012). "Classification of the Indigenous languages of South America". In Grondona, Verónica; Campbell, Lyle (eds.). The Indigenous Languages of South America. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. p. 78. ISBN 9783110255133.