Lenca language

Lenca language

The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of the Lempa river. While the Lenca people continue to live in the same region today, Lyle Campbell reported in the 1970s that he found only 1 speaker of the language in Chilanga, El Salvador, and none in Honduras; the language is effectively extinct. Campbell concluded that Salvadoran Lenca was a distinct dialect from Honduran Lenca.

Indigenous movements in both countries are attempting to revive the language, and recent press reports from Honduras indicate that elementary school textbooks in some form of Lenca have been distributed to public schools in the region.

The linguistic classification of the language is disputed, with several authors arguing for Lenca being a Macro-Chibchan language while others prefer to leave it as unclassified. See the References section for the most current work on Lenca by linguists.

References

* Campbell, Lyle. 1976. "The Last Lenca". "International Journal of American Linguistics" 42(1): 73-78.
* ————. 1997. "American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America". Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Campbell, Lyle, Anne Chapman, and Karen Dakin. 1978. "Honduran Lenca". "International Journal of American Linguistics" 44(4): 330-332.
* Constenla Umaña, A. (1981). Comparative Chibchan Phonology. (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia).
* Constenla Umaña, Adolfo. (1991). "Las lenguas del Área Intermedia: Introducción a su estudio areal". Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San José.
* Constenla Umaña, Adolfo. (1995). Sobre el estudio diacrónico de las lenguas chibchenses y su contribución al conocimiento del pasado de sus hablantes. "Boletín del Museo del Oro" 38-39: 13-56.
* Greenberg, Joseph. 1987. Language In The Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Hemp, Eric. 1976. "On Earlier Lenca Vowels". "International Journal of American Linguistics" 42(1): 78-79.
* Lehman, Walter. 1920. "Zentral-Amerika". see pp. 700-719 (Salvadoran Lenca) and pp. 668-692 (Honduran Lenca).

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=len Ethnologue entry on Lenca]


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