Choco languages

Choco consists of six known branches, all but two of which are extinct.

• The Emberá languages (also known as Chocó proper, Cholo)
• Noanamá (also known as Waunana, Woun Meu)
• Anserma †
• Arma † ? (unattested)
• Sinúfana (Cenufara) † ?
• Caramanta † ?

Anserma, Arma, and Sinúfana are extinct.^{[citation needed]}

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.

Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):^[1]

(† = extinct)

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.^[1]

Genetic links between Choco and Chibchan had been proposed by Lehmann (1920).^[2] However, similarities are few, some of which may be related to the adoption of maize cultivation from neighbors.^[1]: 324

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)^[3]

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Chocó languages.^[4]

For reconstructions of Proto-Chocó and Proto-Emberá by Constenla and Margery (1991),^[5] see the corresponding Spanish article.

• Embera-Wounaan, who speak the Choco languages, Embera and Wounaan
• Quimbaya language

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Constenla Umaña, Adolfo; & Margery Peña, Enrique. (1991). Elementos de fonología comparada Chocó. Filología y lingüística, 17, 137-191.
• Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Gunn, Robert D. (Ed.). (1980). Claificación de los idiomas indígenas de Panamá, con un vocabulario comparativo de los mismos. Lenguas de Panamá (No. 7). Panama: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70414-3.
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
• Loewen, Jacob. (1963). Choco I & Choco II. International Journal of American Linguistics, 29.
• Licht, Daniel Aguirre. (1999). Embera. Languages of the world/materials 208. LINCOM.
• Mortensen, Charles A. (1999). A reference grammar of the Northern Embera languages. Studies in the languages of Colombia (No.7); SIL publications in linguistics (No. 134). SIL.
• Pinto García, C. (1974/1978). Los indios katíos: su cultura - su lengua. Medellín: Editorial Gran-América.
• Rendón G., G. (2011). La lengua Umbra: Descubrimiento - Endolingüística - Arqueolingüística. Manizales: Zapata.
• Rivet, Paul; & Loukotka, Cestmír. (1950). Langues d'Amêrique du sud et des Antilles. In A. Meillet & M. Cohen (Eds.), Les langues du monde (Vol. 2). Paris: Champion.
• Sara, S. I. (2002). A tri-lingual dictionary of Emberá-English-Spanish. (Languages of the World/Dictionaries, 38). Munich: Lincom Europa.
• Suárez, Jorge. (1974). South American Indian languages. The new Encyclopædia Britannica (15th ed.). Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
• Swadesh, Morris. (1959). Mapas de clasificación lingüística de México y las Américas. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
• Tovar, Antonio; & Larrucea de Tovar, Consuelo. (1984). Catálogo de las lenguas de América del Sur (nueva ed.). Madrid: Editorial Gedos. ISBN 84-249-0957-7.

• Proel: Familia Chocó