Northern Emberá language
language
Northern Emberá, also known as West Emberá and Cholo, is the largest Emberá language. It is spoken largely in Colombia, but is also the principal language of the Darién Gap in Panama.
Classification
Northern Emberá is a language that comes from Emberá which is part of the Chocoan family. The Chocoan family includes two principal groups, Waunana and the group of the Emberá languages. The Emberá languages form a dialect continuum with two geographically defined subgroups: the Northern branch contains Northern Emberá proper (referred to as just 'Northern Emberá' in Mortensen 1999) and the Catío language.
History
The Waunanas and Emberás are the last remnants of a larger group of Pre-Columbian ethnic groups, such as the Orominas, the Chancos, the Guarras, the Burrumías, that were diminished during the Colonial period. Genetic findings show that the speakers of Chocó languages are genetically differentiated from the Chibcha speaking tribes of Northern Colombia and cluster with the Orinoquian and Amazonian indigenous populations. Waunana and Emberá share a large number of cognates (estimated to 50% by Loewen 1960: 12), which provide evidence for their common origin. However, there is no clear evidence in terms of a sufficient number of cognates for a common origin of Chocó with other South or Central American families.
Geographic distribution
The majority of the Catío language are found along the Upper Sinu, San Jorge, San Pedro and Murri Rivers of northwestern Colombia with a few living in Panama.
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This entry incorporates text from “Northern Emberá language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.