Lencan languages

The Lencan languages are a small linguistic family from Central America, whose speakers before the Spanish conquest spread throughout El Salvador and Honduras. But by the beginning of the 20th century, only two languages of the family survived, Salvadoran Lenca or Potón and Honduran Lenca, which were described and studied academically; Of them, only Salvadoran Lenca still has current speakers, despite the fact that indigenous people belonging to the Lenca ethnic group exceed between 37,000 and 100,000 people.^[2][3][4]

Lencan
Geographic distribution	El Salvador and Honduras
Ethnicity	Lenca people
Linguistic classification	Macro-Chibchan ? Lencan
Subdivisions	Honduran Lencan † Salvadoran Lencan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	len
Glottolog	lenc1239
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.
Lenca is Extinct according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [1]

Languages

There are two attested Lencan languages:

• Salvadoran Lencan was spoken in Chilanga and Guatajigua.^[2] Lencans had arrived in El Salvador about 2,295 years B.P. and founded the site of Quelepa. One speaker remains.^[2][5]

• 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.)."^[6][7]

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)^[8] 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 end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the use of Honduran Lenca and Salvadoran Lenca began to decline. In the 1950s, Honduran Lenca was already in a critical state of extinction, since the only place where there were speakers was Guajiquiro. In 1982 a Honduran Lenca speaker was found in Guajiquiro.^{[9][10][11][12]} In the 1970s, died in Chilanga, Anselmo Hernández, the last competent Salvadoran Lenca speaker. In the 1990s, some semi-speakers of Honduran Lenca were found. It was assumed that the languages were most likely extinct, and it was believed that it was very unlikely that there were any elders with any knowledge or memory of both languages, and it was also believed that it was very unlikely that fluent speakers could be found. The Honduran Lenca is currently believed to be extinct.^[10][11]

In the case of Salvadoran Lenca, in the end of the nineties Consuelo Roque, linguist from the University of El Salvador (UES), found Mario Salvador Hernández from Guatajiagua (a semi-speaker who is considered the last native speaker by the salvadoran newspapers, and specifically of the variant of that population, and who learned the language from his grandmother) and both would write a learning primer titled in spanish: Poton piau, nuestra lengua Potón.^[13] However, linguist Alan R. King, in his 2016 book titled in spanish Conozcamos el Lenca, una lengua de El Salvador (where he also used the Potón Piau primer as a reference), points out that (translating in english: "Today no one knows how to speak Lenca, although certain individuals have memories of—or have learned—some fragments of that now lost language. This type of partial knowledge is not even remotely close, in any case that we have been able to verify, to a real mastery of the historical language, whose disappearance dates back to the mid-twentieth century...".^[14]

While in the case of Honduran Lenca, the linguist American Alan R. King, in the company of his colleague James Morrow, in 2017 they published the book Kotik molka niwamal (meaning Let's learn to speak Lenca), which is a compilation of words in Lenca among the communities still existing that opens the possibility of recovering a significant part of the language. Currently in El Salvador there are rehabilitation projects for Salvadoran Lenca to prevent its extinction.^[15]

A 2002 novel by Roberto Castillo, La guerra mortal de los sentidos, chronicles the adventures of the "Searcher for the Lenca Language."^[16]

Proto-language

Proto-Lencan
Reconstruction of	Lencan languages

Proto-Lenca reconstructions by Arguedas (1988):^[17]

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