Choco languages



The Choco languages (also Chocoan, Chocó, Chokó) are a small family of Native American languages spread across Colombia and Panama.

Family division
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.

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.

Jolkesky (2016)
Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):

( = extinct)


 * Choko
 * Waunana
 * Embera
 * Southern
 * Embera Baudo
 * Embera Chami
 * Epena
 * Northern
 * Embera Katio
 * Embera Darien

Language contact
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.

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

Genetic relations
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)

Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Chocó languages.

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