Macro-Chibchan is a proposed grouping of the languages of the Lencan,

Misumalpan The Misumalpan languages (also Misumalpa or Misuluan) are a small family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples on the east coast of Nicaragua and nearby areas. The name "Misumalpan" was devised by John Alden Mason and is composed of syllables ...

, and

Chibchan 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 ...

families into a single large phylum (

macrofamily In historical linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily or phylum, is a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families (also isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ' ...

History

The Lencan and Misumalpan languages were once included in the Chibchan family proper, but were excluded pending further evidence as that family became well established. Kaufman (1990) finds the Chibchan–Misumalpan connection convincing, if as yet unsubstantiated, though Campbell (1997) finds it doubtful. The Xincan family was once included in Macro-Chibchan, but this is now doubtful. Constenla (2005) calls this proposed phylum ''Lenmichí'' (Lencan–Misumalpan–Chibchan) and provides 85 cognate sets which exhibit regular sound correspondences among the three families. He suggests that

Chocoan 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 langu ...

may be related as well. Greenberg proposed a broader conception of Macro-Chibchan, one dismissed by linguists working on the families in question. It included

Yanomam Yanomaman, also as Yanomam, Yanomáman, Yamomámi, and Yanomamana (also Shamatari, Shirianan), is a family of languages spoken by about 20,000 Yanomami people in southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil ( Roraima, Amazonas). Subdivision Fer ...

, Purépecha, and Cuitlatec in addition to Chibchan–Misumalpan–Xinca–Lenca. Greenberg (1987) included

Paezan languages Paezan (also Páesan, Paezano, Interandine) may be any of several hypothetical or obsolete language-family proposals of Colombia and Ecuador named after the Paez language. Proposals Currently, Páez (Nasa Yuwe) is best considered either a langu ...

in a Chibchan-Paezan stock with Barbacoan, Chibchan,

, Jirajaran, and the isolates Betoi, Kamsá (

Sibundoy Sibundoy (Camsá: Tabanok "village") is a town and municipality in the Putumayo Department of the Republic of Colombia. The town existed well before the Spanish came in 1534. The Inca, under Huayna Cápac, conquered the local people in 1492 and ...

Yaruro The Yaruro people (or Pumé, according to their self-determination) are a Circum-Caribbean indigenous people, native to the ecoregion of Llanos in Venezuela, located west of the Orinoco River.

, Esmeraldeño, Mochica, Cunza, Itonama, and Yurumanguí. An automated computational analysis (

ASJP The Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) is a collaborative project applying computational approaches to comparative linguistics using a database of word lists. The database is open access and consists of 40-item basic-vocabulary lists ...

4) by Müller et al. (2013)Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013.
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'. also found lexical similarities between

and

. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Reconstruction

Constenla (2005) reconstructed five vowels and eleven consonants for Proto-Lenmichian, with the following reflexes:

Vowels

There are also a series of nasal vowels.

Consonants

References

* Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . * * * Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). ''Language in the Americas''. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. * Kaufman, Terrence (1990). "Language History in South America: What we know and how to know more." In Doris L. Payne, ed. ''Amazonian Linguistics'', pp. 13–74. Austin: University of Texas Press. {{South American languages Proposed language families eo:Makro-ĉibĉa lingvaro