The Chocoan languages (also Choco, Chocó, Chokó) are a small family of Indigenous languages spread across Colombia and Panama.
Contents
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):
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.
Genetic links between Choco and Chibchan had been proposed by Lehmann (1920). However, similarities are few, some of which may be related to the adoption of maize cultivation from neighbors.
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)
Proto-language
For reconstructions of Proto-Chocó and Proto-Emberá by Constenla and Margery (1991), see the corresponding Spanish article.