Coconucan language

Coconuco, also known as Coconucan, Guambiano and Misak, is a dialect cluster of Colombia spoken by the Guambiano indigenous people. Though the three varieties, Guambiano, moribund Totoró, and the extinct Coconuco are traditionally called languages, Adelaar & Muysken (2004) believe that they are best treated as a single language.

Coconuco
Namrrik
Native toColombia
RegionCauca Department
EthnicityGuambiano (Misak)
Native speakers
21,000 (2008)
Barbacoan
  • Coconuco
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
gum  Guambiano
ttk  Totoró
Glottologcoco1262

Totoró may be extinct; it had 4 speakers in 1998 out of an ethnic population of 4,000. Guambiano, on the other hand, is vibrant and growing.

Coconucan was for a time mistakenly included in a spurious Paezan language family, due to a purported "Moguex" (Guambiano) vocabulary that turned out to be a mix of Páez and Guambiano (Curnow 1998).

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