Embera language

Emberá
Chocó
Ethnicity:	Embera-Wounaan
Geographic distribution:	Colombia & Panama
Linguistic classification:	Chocoan Emberá
Subdivisions:	Northern Southern

Emberá (also known as Chocó) is a group of languages spoken by 100,000 people in northwestern Colombia and southeastern Panama. It belongs to the Choco language family.

Embera, Emperã, Empena, Eberã, Epena, etc. is the Embera word for 'human being', and is used as the autonym by all speakers of varieties of Embera (though by the related Wounaan).

Contents 1 Languages and regional variation 2 External links 3 Bibliography 4 References

Languages and regional variation

Emberá is usually divided into at least two languages:

1. Northern Emberá
2. Southern Emberá

Each has a few regional varieties. These varieties are often considered dialects, but are also identified as distinct languages. Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America lists them as follows, along with alleged sub-varieties which may be places, extinct groups, or misspellings:

• Northern (Northern Antioquia, Emberá norteño)

• Catío (Katío): Dabeiba, Tukurá (Río Verde, upper Sinú, Emberá-Katío), Ngverá (San Jorge)
• West Embera (Citará, Northwest Embera, Northern Embera):^[1] Darién (Sambú, Panamá Embera), Citará (Atrato, Andágueda), Juradó

• Southern

• Chamí (Caramanta, Embera-Chamí, East Embera, Southern Antioquia): Tadó*, Cristianía, Upper Andágueda, Mistrató, Garrapatas
• Baudó: Catrú, Dubasa, Purricha, Pavaja
• Eperara (Epena): Joaquincito, Cajambre, Naya, Saija, Tapaje, Satinga

Ethnologue (2005, 2009) treats Tadó (*) as a separate language. A case can be made for classifying Baudó as a Northern Embera language. It has many features of both groups, and indeed is mutually intelligible with the neighboring Northern Embera dialect as well as with Epena.

External links

• Ethnologue: Embera

Bibliography

• The archive of the indigenous languages of Latin America. (Web page: www.ailla.utexas.org/site/sa_lg_tbl.html, accessed 2005, Dec. 27).
• Aguirre Licht, Daniel. (1999). Embera. Languages of the world/materials 208. LINCOM. (Spanish)
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
• Gunn, Robert D. (Ed.). (1980). Claificación de los idiomas indígenas de Panamá, con un vocabulario comparativo de los mismos. Lenguas de Panamá (No. 7). Panama: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. (Spanish)
• Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the world's languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
• Loewen, Jacob. (1963). Choco I & Choco II. International Journal of American Linguistics, 29.
• Mortensen, Charles A. (1999). A reference grammar of the Northern Embera languages. Studies in the languages of Colombia (No.7); SIL publications in linguistics (No. 134). SIL.
• Pardo Rojas, Mauricio y Daniel Aguirre L. (1993). "Dialectología chocó". Biblioteca Ezequiel Uricoechea 11: 269-312. Bogotá:ICC. (Spanish)
• Sara, Solomon (2001). A Tri-Lingual Dictionary of Emberá-Spanish-English. Lincom Europa. ISBN 3895866725

References