Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/), or Muysca de Bogotá, was a language spoken by the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

people of the

Muisca Confederation The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers (''zaques'', ''zipas'', '' iraca'', and ''tundama'') in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of northern South America. The ...

, one of the many

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

cultures of the Americas. The Muisca inhabited the

Altiplano Cundiboyacense The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alti ...

of what today is the country of

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. The name of the language ''Muysc Cubun'' in its own language means "language of the people", from ''muysca'' ("people") and ''cubun'' ("language" or "word"). Despite the disappearance of the language in the 17th century (approximately), several language revitalization processes are underway within the current Muisca communities. The Muisca people remain ethnically distinct and their communities are recognized by the Colombian state. Important

scholars A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher ...

who have contributed to the knowledge of the Chibcha language include

Juan de Castellanos Juan de Castellanos (March 9, 1522 – November 1606)Jua ...

, Bernardo de Lugo,

José Domingo Duquesne José Domingo Duquesne (Bogotá, 23 February 1748 - idem, 30 August 1822) was a Colombian clergyman, theologist, scientist and writer. Polyglot Duquesne spoke Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, Italian and Chibcha.Ezequiel Uricoechea Ezequiel Uricoechea Rodríguez (Bogotá, 9 April 1834 – Beirut, 29 July 1880) was a Colombian linguist and scientist. He is considered one of the first Colombian scientists and a pioneer in Spanish-language linguistics. Biography Urico ...

History

In prehistorical times, in the

Andean civilization The Andean civilizations were complex societies of many cultures and peoples mainly developed in the river valleys of the coastal deserts of Peru. They stretched from the Andes of southern Colombia southward down the Andes to Chile and northwe ...

s called

preceramic Aceramic is defined as "not producing pottery". In archaeology, the term means "without pottery". Aceramic societies usually used bark, basketry, gourds and leather for containers. It is sometimes used to refer to a specific early Neolithic period ...

, the population of northwestern South America migrated through the

Darién Gap The Darién Gap (, , es, Tapón del Darién , ) is a geographic region between the North and South American continents within Central America, consisting of a large watershed, forest, and mountains in Panama's Darién Province and the norther ...

between the

isthmus of Panama The Isthmus of Panama ( es, Istmo de Panamá), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country ...

and Colombia. Other

Chibchan languages The Chibchan languages (also Chibchan, Chibchano) make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa ...

are spoken in southern Central America and the Muisca and related indigenous groups took their language with them into the heart of Colombia where they comprised the

, a cultural grouping.

Spanish colonization

As early as 1580 the authorities in Charcas,

Quito Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley o ...

, and

Santa Fe de Bogotá Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...

mandated the establishment of schools in native languages and required that priests study these languages before ordination. In 1606 the entire clergy was ordered to provide religious instruction in Chibcha. The Chibcha language declined in the 18th century. In 1770, King

Charles III of Spain it, Carlo Sebastiano di Borbone e Farnese , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Philip V of Spain , mother = Elisabeth Farnese , birth_date = 20 January 1716 , birth_place = Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Spain , death_d ...

officially banned use of the language in the region as part of a

de-indigenization Detribalization is the process by which persons who belong to a particular Indigenous ethnic identity or community are detached from that identity or community through the deliberate efforts of colonizers and/or the larger effects of colonialism ...

project. The ban remained in law until Colombia passed its

constitution of 1991 The Political Constitution of Colombia of 1991 ( es, Constitución Política de Colombia de 1991), is the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia. It was promulgated in Constitutional Gazette number 114 on Thursday, July 4, 1991, and is also ...

Modern history

Modern

Muisca scholars The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

as Diego Gómez have claimed that the variety of languages was much larger than previously thought and that in fact there was a Chibcha

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

that extended throughout the Cordillera Oriental from the

Sierra Nevada del Cocuy The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy Chita or Guican National Natural Park (or Sierra Nevada de Chita or Sierra Nevada de Güicán, es, Parque Natural Sierra Nevada del Cocuy Chita o Guican is a national park and a series of highlands and glaciated peaks l ...

to the

Sumapaz Páramo Sumapaz Páramo (Spanish: ''Páramo de Sumapaz'' - meaning "Utterly peaceful moorland" ) is a large páramo ecosystem located in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense mountain range, considered the largest páramo ecosystem in the world. It was de ...

. The quick colonization of the Spanish and the improvised use of traveling translators reduced the differences between the versions of Chibcha over time. Since 2008 a Spanish–Muysc cubun dictionary containing more than 3000 words has been published online. The project was partly financed by the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 194 ...

, Norway.

Greetings in Chibcha

* - hello (to 1 person) * - hello to more people * - Are you good? ow are you?* - I am / we are good * - goodbye! Saravia, 2015, p.13

Alphabet and rough pronunciation

The ''muysccubun'' alphabet consists of around 20 letters. The Muisca didn't have an "L" in their language. The letters are pronounced more or less as follows:Saravia, 2015, p.10Saravia, 2015, p.11 a - as in Spanish "casa"; ka - "enclosure" or "fence"
e - as in "''a''ction"; izhe - "street"
i - open "i" as in "i''nca" - sié - "water" or "river"
o - short "o" as in "b''o''x" - to - "dog"
u - "ou" as in "y''ou''" - uba - "face"
y - between "i" and "e"; "a" in action - ty - "singing"
b - as in "''b''ed", or as in Spanish "ha''b''a"; - bohozhá - "with"
:between the vowels "y" it is pronounced �w- kyby - "to sleep" ch - "sh" as in "''sh''ine", but with the tongue pushed backwards - chuta - "son" or "daughter"
f - between a "b" and "w" using both lips without producing sound, a short whistle - foï - "mantle"
:before a "y" it's pronounced �w- fyzha - "everything" g - "gh" as in "''g''ood", or as in Spanish "abo''g''ado"; - gata - "fire"
h - as in "''h''ello" - huïá - "inwards"
ï - "i-e" as in Beelzebub - ïe - "road" or "prayer"
k - "c" as in "''c''old" - kony - "wheel"
m - "m" as in "''m''an" - mika - "three"
:before "y" it's pronounced w as in "Muisca" - myska - "person" or "people" :in first position before a consonant it's pronounced m- mpkwaká - "thanks to" n - "n" as in "''n''ice" - nyky - "brother" or "sister"
:in first position followed by a consonant it's pronounced n- ngá - "and" p - "p" as in "''p''eople" - paba - "father"
:before "y" it's pronounced was in Spanish "''pue''nte" - - "heart" s - "s" as in "''s''orry" - sahawá - "husband"
:before "i" changes a little to "sh"; �- sié - "water" or "river" t - "t" as in "''t''ext" - yta - "hand"
w - "w" as in "''w''ow!" - we - "house"
zh - as in "''ch''orizo", but with the tongue to the back - zhysky - "head" The accentuation of the words is like in Spanish on the second-last syllable except when an accent is shown: ''Bacata'' is Ba-CA-ta and ''Bacatá'' is Ba-ca-TA. In case of repetition of the same vowel, the word can be shortened: fuhuchá ~ fuchá - "woman". In Chibcha, words are made of combinations where sometimes vowels are in front of the word. When this happens in front of another vowel, the vowel changes as follows:Saravia, 2015, p.12 a-uba becomes oba - "his (or her, its) face"
a-ita becomes eta - "his base"
a-yta becomes ata - "his hand" (note: ata also means "one") Sometimes this combination is not performed and the words are written with the prefix plus the new vowel: a-ita would become eta but can be written as aeta, a-uba as aoba and a-yta as ayta

Numbers

Counting 1 to 10 in Chibcha is , , , , , , , , , . The Muisca only had numbers one to ten and the 'perfect' number 20; ''gueta'', used extensively in their complex

lunisolar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Ea ...

Muisca calendar The Muisca calendar was a lunisolar calendar used by the Muisca. The calendar was composed of a complex combination of months and three types of years were used; rural years (according to Pedro Simón, Chibcha: ''chocan''), holy years (Duquesne, Sp ...

. For numbers higher than 10 they used additions; ' ("ten plus one") for eleven. Higher numbers were multiplications of twenty; ' would be "five times twenty"; 100.

Structure and grammar

Subject

The subjects in Chibcha do not have genders or plurals. to thus can mean "male dog", "male dogs", "female dog" or "female dogs". To solve this, the Muisca used the numbers and the word for "man", cha, and "woman", fuhuchá, to specify gender and plural:Saravia, 2015, p.14 * ''to cha ata'' - "one male dog" (literally: "dog" "male" "one") * ''to cha mika'' - "three male dogs" ("dog male three") * ''to fuhuchá myhyká'' - "four female dogs"

Personal pronoun

Possessive pronoun

The

possessive A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...

pronoun is placed before the word it refers to. * ''i-'' is only used in combination with ch, n, s, t or zh; ''i-to'' = ito ("my dog") * ''zh-'' becomes ''zhy-'' when followed by a consonant (except ï); ''zh-paba'' = zhypaba ("my father") * in case of a ï, the letter is lost: ''zh-ïohozhá'' = zhohozhá ("my buttocks") * ''m-'' becomes ''um-'' when followed by a consonant; ''m-ïoky'' = umïoky ("your book") * ''zhy-'' and ''um-'' are shortened when the word starts with w; ''zhy-waïá'' & ''um-waïá'' = zhwaïá & mwaïá ("mi mother" & "your mother") * when the word starts with h, ''zhy-'' and ''um-'' are shortened and the vowel following j repeated; ''zhy-hué'' & ''um-hué'' = zhuhué & muhué ("my sir" & "your sir")

Verbs

The Muisca used two types of verbs, ending on -skua and -suka; ("to do") and guitysuka ("to whip") which have different forms in their

grammatical conjugation In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ...

s. is shown below, for verbs ending on -suka, see

here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a TV ...

Conjugations

;

Present tense The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...

imperfect The imperfect (abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to w ...

; Perfect and

pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...

;

Future tense In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...

Imperatives

;

Volitive modality Volitive modality (abbreviated ) is a linguistic modality that indicates the desires, wishes or fears of the speaker. It is classified as a subcategory of deontic modality. Realisation in speech Volitive moods are a category of grammatical moods th ...

Selection of words

This list is a selection from the online dictionary and is sortable. Note the different

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es and types of

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and their meaning.

Comparison to other Chibchan languages

Surviving words and education

Words of ''Muysccubun'' origin are still used in the department of Cundinamarca of which

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

is the capital, and the department of Boyacá, with capital

Tunja Tunja () is a city on the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, in the region known as the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, 130 km northeast of Bogotá. In 2018 it had a population of 172,548 inhabitants. It is the capital of Boyacá department an ...

. These include ''curuba'' (Colombian fruit

banana passionfruit Banana passionfruit (''Passiflora'' supersect. ''Tacsonia''), also known as taxo and curuba, is a group of around 64 '' Passiflora'' species found in South America. Most species in this section are found in high elevation cloud forest habitats. Fl ...

), ''toche'' (

yellow oriole The yellow oriole (''Icterus nigrogularis'') is a passerine bird in the family Icteridae. It should not be confused with the green oriole, sometimes alternatively called the Australasian yellow oriole (''Oriolus flavocinctus''), which is an Old ...

), ''guadua'' (a large bamboo used in construction) and ''tatacoa'' ("snake"). The Muisca descendants continue many traditional ways, such as the use of certain foods, use of ''

coca Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, Al ...

'' for teas and healing rituals, and other aspects of natural ways, which are a respected part of culture in Colombia. As the Muisca did not have words for imported technology or items in early colonial times, they borrowed them from Spanish, such as "shoe"; ''çapato'', "sword"; ''espada'', "knife"; ''cuchillo'' Diccionario muysca - español. Gómez, Diego F. 2009 - 201
"Knife" in ''muysccubun''
/ref> and other words. The only public school in

currently teaching Chibcha (to about 150 children) is in the town of Cota, about by road from Bogotá. The school is named ''Jizcamox'' (healing with the hands) in Chibcha.

Toponyms

Most of the original Muisca names of the villages, rivers and national parks and some of the provinces in the central highlands of the Colombian

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

are kept or slightly altered. Usually the names refer to farmfields (''ta''), the Moon goddess Chía, her husband

Sué Sué, Xué, Sua, Zuhe or Suhé was the deity, god of the Sun in the Muisca religion and mythology, religion of the Muisca. He was married to Moon goddess Chía (goddess), Chía.Ocampo López, 2013, Ch.4, p.33 The Muisca people, Muisca and their Mu ...

, names of ''

cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...

s'', the

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

of the region, built enclosures (''ca'') and animals of the region.Etymology Municipalities Boyacá
- Excelsio.net

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

*
''Diccionario y gramática chibcha''
-

World Digital Library The World Digital Library (WDL) is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress. The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume ...

*
Muysc cubun Project
- with Muysc cubun–Spanish dictionary *
Archives and sources on the Chibcha language
-

Rosetta Project The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone to last from 2000 to 12,000 AD; it is run by the Long Now Foundation. Its goal is ...

*
Animated video about the last Muisca rulers
- ''Muysccubun'' is spoken with Spanish subtitles
Muisca
(

Intercontinental Dictionary Series The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An ...

) {{authority control Chibchan languages Extinct languages of South America Indigenous peoples in Colombia Languages of Colombia