Chibchan languages

Chibchan
Geographic
distribution
Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia
Linguistic classificationMacro-Chibchan ?
  • Chibchan
Language codes
ISO 639-5cba
Glottologchib1249

The Chibchan languages (also known as Chibchano) 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 Muisca, 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.[1]

  1. ^ Pache, M. J. (2018, December 5). Contributions to Chibchan historical linguistics. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/67094 Page 18

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