Coconucan language


Coconuco, also known as Coconucan, Guambiano, Misak, and Nam Trik, is a dialect cluster of Colombia spoken by the Guambiano indigenous people. Though the three varieties, Guambiano, recently extinct Totoró, and the long-extinct Coconuco are traditionally called languages, Adelaar & Muysken believe that they are best treated as a single language.
Totoró is now 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" vocabulary that turned out to be a mix of Páez and Guambiano.

Phonology

The Guambiano inventory is as follows.
FrontCentralBack
Close
Mid
Back

BilabialDentalRetroflexPalatalVelar
Nasal
Plosive
Affricate
Fricative
Liquid,
Semivowel