Cueva was an

Indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an indigen ...

of Panama, now extinct, with limited attestation and often misclassified within linguistic studies. The Cueva people experienced a significant population decline between 1510 and 1535 due to conflicts, diseases, and the effects of Spanish colonization. By the 17th and 18th centuries, the Guna had migrated into the former Cueva territory, repopulating the area.

Classification

Loukotka mistakenly identified a Guna vocabulary from the Darién as Cueva, leading to confusion of Cueva with Guna in subsequent literature , with some authors reporting that Cueva was a dialect of or ancestral to the Guna language . The Guna language and culture are very different from the Cueva. Loewren and Constenla Umaña & Margery Peña(Constenla Umaña & Margery Peña 1991) have suggested a connection between Cueva and the Chocoan family.

Bibliography

* Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). ''The languages of the Andes''. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press. * Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. . * Constenla Umaña, Adolfo; & Margery Peña, Enrique. (1991). Elementos de fonología comparada chocó. In ''Filología y lingüística'' (No. 17, 1–2, pp. 137–191). San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica. * Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). ''Language in the Americas''. Stanford: Stanford University Press. * Loewren, Jacob A. (1963). Chocó II: Phonological problems. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''29'' (4), 357-371. * Loukotka, Čestmír. (1968). ''Classification of South American Indian languages''. Los Angeles: Latin American Studies Center, University of California. * Romoli, Kathleen. (1987). ''Los de la lengua de Cueva: Los grupos indígenas del istmo oriental en la época de la conquista española''. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología, Instituto Colombiano de Cultura (Ediciones Tercer Mundo).

References

Indigenous languages of Central America Languages of Panama Extinct languages of North America Unclassified languages of North America Indigenous languages of North America {{indigenousAmerican-lang-stub