Lenca (language)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lenca

Spoken in

Honduras and El Salvador
Language codes
ISO 639-3

len

Lenca is one of the indigenous American languages or a small family of languages ​​that is or was spoken by members of the Lenca indigenous people in the Central American states of Honduras and El Salvador .

The American linguist Lyle Campbell came to the conclusion in the 1970s that it was more a small language family made up of two different individual languages, the Salvadoran Lenca in El Salvador and the Honduran Lenca in Honduras. The distribution area of ​​the Honduran Lenca is or was in the departments of Comayagua , Francisco Morazán , Intibucá , La Paz , Lempira , Santa Bárbara and Valle , the Salvadoran Lenca was known from the place Chilanga . In Honduras the dialects Serkin ( Cerquín ), Kare ( Care ), Lenka ( Lenca ) and Kolo ( Colo ) are distinguished, in El Salvador the Potón ( Chilanga ).

According to Ethnologue , the language is almost extinct, the approximately 100,000 ethnic Lenca in Honduras and the approximately 37,000 ethnic Lenca in El Salvador have largely switched to Spanish . Lyle Campbell reported in the 1970s that the Salvadoran Lenca was almost certainly extinct, and that he was able to consult the last speaker in 1970 shortly before his death. The Honduran Lenca is also believed to be extinct or near extinction; In 1974 he could not find a speaker, but due to the greater extent and more difficult accessibility of the language area of ​​the Honduran Lenca, a final statement about it is not yet possible.

A genetic relationship between Lenca and other languages ​​has not yet been proven, which is why it is viewed as an isolated language or an independent small language family. There are suspicions that Lenca could be related to the Xinca languages .

The code according to ISO 639-3 is len.

swell

  1. ↑ a b c d Lyle Campbell: The last Lenca. In: International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol. 42, No. 1, 1976, pp. 73-78.
  2. ^ A b Lyle Campbell, Anne Chapman, Karen Dakin: Honduran Lenca. In: International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol. 44, No. 4, 1978, pp. 330-332.
  3. ↑ a b Ethnologue entry for Lenca
  4. ↑ Ethnologue names the place Chilango , see Ethnologue entry for Lenca .
  5. ↑ http://www.proel.org/index.php?pagina=mundo/aisladas/lenkan

literature

  • Monica VT Calderon, Gutierrez Rosibel: Language differences in Latin America. In: Notes on Scripture in Use and Language Programs. 32, 1992, pp. 42-46.
  • Lyle Campbell : The last Lenca. In: International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol. 42, No. 1, 1976, ISSN  0020-7071 , pp. 73-78, JSTOR 1264812 .
  • Lyle Campbell, Anne Chapman, Karen Dakin: Honduran Lenca. In: International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol. 44, No. 4, 1978, pp. 330-332, JSTOR 1264286 .

Web links

  • Lenca. In: M. Paul Lewis, Gary F. Simons, Charles D. Fennig (Eds.): Ethnologue. Languages ​​of the World. 19th edition. Online version. SIL International, Dallas TX 2016.