Lencan is a small family of nearly extinct indigenous Mesoamerican languages.

Languages

There are two attested Lencan languages, both extinct (Campbell 1997:167).

Map of El Salvador's Indigenous Peoples at the time of the Spanish conquest: 1. Pipil people, 2. Lenca people, 3. Kakawira o Cacaopera, 4. Xinca, 5. Maya Ch'orti' people, 6. Maya Poqomam people, 7. Mangue o Chorotega.

• Salvadoran Lencan was spoken in Chilanga and Potó (thus the alternative language name Potón).^[1] Lencans had arrived in El Salvador about 2,000 years B.P. and founded the site of Quelepa. One speaker remains.^[1]
• Honduran Lencan was spoken with minor dialect differences in Intibucá, Opatoro, Guajiquiro, Similatón (modern Cabañas), and Santa Elena. Some phrases survive; it is not known if the entire language still exists.

The languages are not closely related; Swadesh (1967) estimated 3,000 years since separation. Arguedas Cortés (1987) reconstructs Proto-Lencan with 12 consonants (including ejectives) and 5 vowels.

External relationships

The external relationships of the Lencan languages are disputed. Inclusion within Macro-Chibchan has often been proposed; Campbell (1987) reported that he found no solid evidence for such a connection, but Constenla-Umaña (2005) proposed regular correspondence between Lencan, Misumalpan, and Chibchan.

Campbell (2012) acknowledges that these claims of connection between Lencan, Misumalpan, and Chibchan have not yet been proved systematically, but he notes that Constenla-Umaña (2005) "presented evidence to support a relationship with two neighboring families [of languages]: Misumalpan and Lencan, which constitute the Lenmichí Micro-Phylum. According to [Constenla-Umaña's study (2005)], the Lenmichi Micro-Phylum first split into Proto-Chibchan and Proto-Misulencan, the common intermediate ancestor of the Lencan and the Misumalpan languages. This would have happened around 9,726 years before the present or 7,720 B.C. (the average of the time depths between the Chibchan languages and the Misulencan languages)...The respective subancestors of the Lencan and the Misumalpan languages would have separated around 7,705 before the present (5,069 B.C.), and Paya and the other intermediate ancestors of all the other Chibchan languages would have separated around 6,682 (4,676 B.C.)."^[2][3]

Another proposal by Lehmann (1920:727) links Lencan with the Xincan language family, though Campbell (1997:167) rejects most of Lehmann's twelve lexical comparisons as invalid. An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)^[4] also found lexical similarities between Lencan and Xincan. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

History

The Proto-Lencan homeland was most likely in central Honduras (Campbell 1997:167).

At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, the Lenca language was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporated 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 one speaker of the language in Chilanga, El Salvador, and none in Honduras. Campbell also concluded that Salvadoran Lenca was a distinct language 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 Salvadoran Lenca have been distributed to public schools in the region.

A 2002 novel by Roberto Castillo, La guerra mortal de los sentidos, chronicles the adventures of the "Searcher for the Lenca Language."^[5]

Proto-language

Proto-Lenca reconstructions by Arguedas (1988):^[6]

No.	Spanish gloss (original)	English gloss (translated)	Proto-Lenca
1.	abrir	open (verb)	*inkolo-
2.	agua	water	*was
3.	anciana	old woman
4.	araña	spider	*katu
5.	ardilla	squirrel	*suri
6.	bailar	dance	*uli-
7.	bañar	bathe	*twa-
8.	beber	drink	*tali-
9.	blanco	white	*soko
10.	boca	mouth	*in
11.	bueno	good	*sam
12.	cabello	hair	*asak
13.	caites	sandals	*waktik
14.	camarón	shrimp	*siksik
15.	camino	path	*k’in
16.	casa	house	*t’aw
17.	cerrar	close (verb)	*inkap-
18.	cinco	five	*ts’aj
19.	comal	comal	*k’elkin
20.	comprar	buy	*liwa-
21.	cortar	cut	*tajk-
22.	coyol	coyol	*juku
23.	coyote	coyote	*sua
24.	chupar	suck
25.	decir	say	*aj-
26.	desear	want	*saj
27.	diente	tooth	*nek
28.	dos	two	*pe
29.	él	he	*inani
30.	enfermo, estar	sick	*ona-
31.	espina	thorn	*ma
32.	este	this	*na
33.	estrella	star	*sirik
34.	flor	flower	*sula
35.	fuego	fire	*juk’a
36.	grande	big	*pukV
37.	guacal	tub	*k’akma
38.	hermano	brother	*pelek
39.	hígado	liver	*muts’u
40.	hormiga	ant	*its’its’i
41.	hueso	bone	*ts’ek
42.	ir	go	*o-
43.	jocote	jocote	*muraka
44.	lavar	wash	*ts’ajk-
45.	leña	firewood	*sak
46.	lluvia	rain	*so
47.	macho	male	*kew
48.	maíz	corn	*ajma
49.	mapachín	raccoon	*wala
50.	milpa	cornfield	*ta
51.	montaña	mountain	*kotan
52.	mover	move	*lum-
53.	nariz	nose	*nep
54.	niño	boy	*we
55.	nosotros	we	*apinani
56.	nube	cloud
57.	oír	hear	*eni-
58.	orinar	urinate	*wajsa-
59.	pavo	turkey	*lok
60.	peine	comb	*tenmaskin
61.	pelo, pluma	hair, feather
62.	perro	dog	*su
63.	pico	peak	*ints’ek
64.	piedra	stone	*ke
65.	piña	pineapple	*mats’ati
66.	piojo	louse	*tem
67.	puerco de monte	wild pig	*map’it, *nap’it
68.	pulga	flea	*t’ut’u
69.	quebracho	quebracho tree	*sili
70.	quién	who	*k’ulan
71.	reír	laugh	*jolo-
72.	río	river	*wara
73.	roble	oak	*mal
74.	ropa	clothes	*lam-
75.	rostro	face	*tik
76.	saber	know	*ti-
77.	seis	six	*wi
78.	sembrar	sow	*isa-
79.	tapesco, cama	bed frame, bed	*le-
80.	tigre (jaguar), león (puma)	tiger (jaguar), lion (puma)	*lepa
81.	tocar	touch	*jete-
82.	trabajar	work
83.	tres	three	*lawa
84.	tú	you (sg.)	*amanani
85.	uña	fingernail	*kumam
86.	venir	come	*po-
87.	yo	I	*unani
88.	zarigüeya	opossum	*ts’ewe
89.	zopilote	vulture	*kus

References

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Campbell, Lyle. 2012. The Indigenous Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide. De Gruyter Mouton: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston.
• Constenla Umaña, Adolfo. (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.
• Constenla Umaña, Adolfo (2005). "Existe relacion genealogica entre las lenguas misumalpas y las chibchenses?" Estudios de Linguistica Chibcha. 23: 9–59.
• Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: LENCA.
• 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

Wiktionary has a list of reconstructed forms at Appendix:Proto-Lencan reconstructions

• OLAC resources in and about the Lenca language
• Audio Recording of an Elicitation and Wordlist in Lenca from the MesoAmerican Languages Collection of Lyle Campbell at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America.