| Also Known As: Lenca Language,Lenca
Description:
The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of the Lempa river. While the Lenca people continue to live in the same region today, Lyle Campbell reported in the 1970s that he found only 1 speaker of the language in Chilanga, El Salvador, and none in Honduras; the language is effectively extinct. Campbell concluded that Salvadoran Lenca was a distinct dialect from Honduran Lenca.
Indigenous movements in both countries are attempting to revive the language, and recent press reports from Honduras indicate that elementary school textbooks in some form of Lenca have been distributed to public schools in the region.
The linguistic classification of the language is disputed, with several authors arguing for Lenca being a Macro-Chibchan language while others prefer to leave it as unclassified. See the References section for the most current work on Lenca by linguists...... full article at Wikipedia |
