Chibchan

Chibchan is the name of a collection of indigenous languages spoken in Colombia and Central America. The name is derived from the name of an extinct language called Chibcha or Muisca, spoken by the people who lived in the city of Bogota at the time of the European invasion. However、genetic and linguistic data now indicate that the original hearth of Chibchan languages and Chibchan-speaking peoples may not have been in Colombia at all、but was actually in Costa Rica and Panama (where one finds the greatest diversity in Chibchan languages).

Linguist Adolfo Constenla (1981、1991、1995) has created a detailed classification of Chibchan languages. Most of these fall into the Southern Chibchan categories of Votic、Isthmic、and Magdalenic subgroups.