Social:Salvadoran Lenca

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Short description: Language of El Salvador
Lencan
Native toEl Salvador
EthnicityLenca people
Extinctby 2007, some semi-speakers remain
Lencan
  • Lencan
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologlenc1243[1]
Lang Status 01-EX.svg
Lenca is an extinct language according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
[2]
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 Lenca was spoken in Chilanga and Potón. Lencans had arrived in El Salvador about 2,000 years B.C.E and founded the site of Quelepa. One speaker remains in Potón.[citation needed]

Salvadoran Lenca is of the small language family of Lencan languages that consists of two languages one of which is the Salvadoran Lenca and the Honduran Lenca. There have been attempts to link the Lencan languages to other languages within their groupings, but there has been no success. [3]

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants in Chilanga Lenca[4]
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive voiceless p t k
ejective
Affricate t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ
Fricative s ʃ h
Lateral l
Rhotic r
Glide w j
  • Obstruents can be voiced allophonically.

Vowels

Vowels in Chilanga Lenca[4]
Front Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

Lenca Potón

As of 2012, Mario Salvador Hernández of Guatajiagua is the last speaker of Lenca Potón, which differs from the version spoken in Chilanga, where the language has disappeared. Research in 2004 by the University of El Salvador recorded 380 words, five vowels and 16 consonants, alternation between “g” and “k”, with reduplication to create plurals from singular forms.[5]

References

  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Lenca-Salvador". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/lenc1243. 
  2. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 13. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000187026. 
  3. Campbell, Lyle. Glossary of Historical Linguistics. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Del Río Urrutía, 1999
  5. Liliana Fuentes Monroy (2012). "Buscan rescatar lengua potón". La Prensa. http://www.laprensagrafica.com/el-salvador/departamentos/279667-buscan-rescatar-lengua-poton.html. Retrieved 2012-09-30.