Cabécar language

The Cabécar language is an indigenous American language of the Chibchan language family spoken by the Cabécar people in the inland Turrialba Region, Cartago Province, Costa Rica. As of 2007, 2,000 speakers were monolingual.^[1] It is the only indigenous language in Costa Rica with monolingual adults.^[1] The language is also known by its dialect names Chirripó, Estrella, Telire, and Ujarrás.^[1]

Cabécar
Native to	Costa Rica
Region	Turrialba Region (Cartago Province)
Ethnicity	Cabécar people 13,000 (2011 census)[1]
Native speakers	11,000 (2011)[1] 2,000 monolingual (2015)[1]
Language family	Chibchan Core-Chibchan Isthmic Western Isthmic Viceitic Cabécar
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cjp
Glottolog	cabe1245
ELP	Cabécar

History

Cabécar is considered to be one of a few "Chibcha-speaking tribes", categorized by similarities in the languages that they speak. Other Chibcha speaking tribes include the Bribri and the Boruca, also of Costa Rica. It is believed that the languages of the Chibcha speaking tribes shared a common ancestor around 8,000 years ago. However, differences in the languages are thought to have come about from the influence of outside people, including influences from Mesoamerica.^[2]

Geographic distribution

Cabécar is an endangered language spoken in Costa Rica. It is spoken by the Cabécar people, an indigenous group located near the Talamancan mountains of Costa Rica.^[2]

Dialects and varieties

There are two different dialects of Cabécar, each of which has more narrow dialects within it. One of these is spoken in the north, while the other is spoken in southern parts of Costa Rica.^[3]

Phonology

Cabécar uses a Latin alphabet with umlauts for (ë, ö), and tildes for (ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ).^[4] Cabécar has twelve vowels, five of which are nasalized.^[4]

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	p ⟨p⟩		t ⟨t⟩		t͡ʃ ⟨ch⟩	k ⟨k⟩
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩		d ⟨d⟩		d͡ʒ ⟨y⟩
Fricative				s ⟨s⟩		ʃ ⟨sh⟩		h ⟨j⟩
Affricate			t͡k ⟨tk⟩	t͡s ⟨ts⟩
Flap					ɽ ⟨r⟩
Nasal							ŋ ⟨n̈⟩

Vowels

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
High	oral	i ⟨i⟩		u ⟨u⟩
	nasal	ĩ ⟨i̱⟩		ũ ⟨u̱⟩
Near-high		ɪ ⟨ë⟩		ʊ ⟨ö⟩
Mid-high	oral	e ⟨e⟩		o ⟨o⟩
	nasal	ẽ ⟨e̱⟩		õ ⟨o̱⟩
Low	oral		a ⟨a⟩
	nasal		ã ⟨a̱⟩

^[5]

Grammar

Cabécar has a canonical word order of subject–object–verb.^[1]