Spanish colonization

As early as 1580 the authorities in Charcas, Quito, and Santa Fe de Bogotá mandated the establishment of schools in native languages and required that priests study these languages before ordination. In 1606 the entire clergy was ordered to provide religious instruction in Chibcha. The Chibcha language declined in the 18th century.^[6]

In 1770, King Charles III of Spain officially banned use of the language in the region ^[6] as part of a de-indigenization project. The ban remained in law until Colombia passed its constitution of 1991.

Modern history

Modern Muisca scholars as Diego Gómez^[7] have claimed that the variety of languages was much larger than previously thought and that in fact there was a Chibcha dialect continuum that extended throughout the Cordillera Oriental from the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy to the Sumapaz Páramo.^[7] The quick colonization of the Spanish and the improvised use of traveling translators reduced the differences between the versions of Chibcha over time.^[8]

Since 2008 a Spanish–Muysc cubun dictionary containing more than 3000 words has been published online. The project was partly financed by the University of Bergen, Norway.^[9]

Consonants

Sounds /b, ɡ/ also may be heard as fricatives [β, ɣ] in intervocalic positions.

Vowels

Greetings in Muysc cubun

The following greetings have been taken directly from written sources from the 17th century when the language was alive.

• choâ - Hello, choâ mzone – how are you?
• choâ mibizine - To greet several people
• chogue – Fine!
• mua,z, choa umzone – What about you? (And you are well?)
• haspqua sihipquaco – Greetings!

Verbs

See Muysca verbs (In Spanish)

Numbers

Counting 1 to 10 in Chibcha is ata, boza, mica, muyhyca, hyzca, taa, cuhupqua, suhuza, aca, hubchihica.^[9] The Muisca only had numbers one to ten and the number 20: gueta, used extensively in their complex lunisolar Muisca calendar. For numbers higher than 10 they used additions; quihicha ata ("ten plus one") for eleven. Higher numbers were multiplications of twenty; guehyzca would be "five times twenty"; 100.

Selection of words

This list is a selection from the online dictionary and is sortable. Note the different potatoes and types of maize and their meaning.^[9]

Comparison to other Chibchan languages

Surviving words

Words of Muysc cubun origin are still used in the department of Cundinamarca, of which Bogotá is the capital, and the department of Boyacá, with capital Tunja. These include curuba (Colombian fruit banana passionfruit), toche (yellow oriole), guadua (a large bamboo used in construction) and tatacoa ("snake"). The Muisca descendants continue many traditional ways, such as the use of certain foods, use of coca for teas and healing rituals, and other aspects of natural ways, which are a respected part of culture in Colombia.

As the Muisca did not have words for imported technology or items in early colonial times, they borrowed them from Spanish, such as "shoe"; çapato,^[28] "sword"; espada,^[29] "knife"; cuchillo^[30] and other words.

Toponyms

Most of the original Muisca names of the villages, rivers and national parks and some of the provinces in the central highlands of the Colombian Andes are kept or slightly altered. Usually the names refer to farmfields (ta), the Moon goddess Chía, her husband Sué, names of caciques, the topography of the region, built enclosures (ca) and animals of the region.^[31]

Education

The only public school in Colombia currently teaching Chibcha (to about 150 children) is in the town of Cota, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) by road from Bogotá. The school is named Jizcamox (healing with the hands) in Chibcha.^[32]

It has been suggested that this article should be split into a new article titled Myska language. (discuss) (May 2024)

The Myska language

The Myska language is a constructed language based on colonial Chibcha, created by the Argentine Facundo Saravia. The pronunciation is based on the phonological proposal by María González for chibcha, although it has several innovations. Its spelling is also based on the Aproximación al sistema fonético-fonológico de la lengua muisca^[33] and a free adaptation of the spelling of Fray Bernardo de Lugo.

This language has received several criticisms from the chibcha cabildos and sectors of academia.

Alphabet and rough pronunciation

This article may contain excessive or inappropriate references to self-published sources. (October 2016)

More information Phoneme, Letter ...

Phoneme	Letter
/i/	i
/ɨ/	y
/u/	u
/e/	e
/o/	o
/a/	a
/p/	p
/t/	t
/k/	k
/b~β/	b
/g~ɣ/	g
/ɸ/	f
/s/	s
/ʂ/	ch
/h/	h
/tʂ/	zh
/m/	m
/n/	n
/w/	w
/j/	ï

Close

The Myska alphabet consists of around 20 letters. Myska didn't have an "L" in their language. The letters are pronounced more or less as follows:^[34][35][36]

a – as in Spanish "casa"; ka – "enclosure" or "fence"
e – as in "action"; izhe – "street"
i – open "i" as in "'inca" – sié – "water" or "river"
o – short "o" as in "box" – to – "dog"
u – "ou" as in "you" – uba – "face"
y – between "i" and "e"; "a" in action – ty – "singing"
b – as in "bed", or as in Spanish "haba"; – bohozhá – "with"

between the vowels "y" it is pronounced [βw] – kyby – "to sleep"

ch – "sh" as in "shine", but with the tongue pushed backwards – chuta – "son" or "daughter"
f – between a "b" and "w" using both lips without producing sound, a short whistle – foï – "mantle"

before a "y" it's pronounced [ɸw] – fyzha – "everything"

g – "gh" as in "good", or as in Spanish "abogado"; – gata – "fire"
h – as in "hello" – huïá – "inwards"
ï – "i-e" as in Beelzebub – ïe – "road" or "prayer"
k – "c" as in "cold" – kony – "wheel"
m – "m" as in "man" – mika – "three"

before "y" it's pronounced [mw], as in "Muisca" – myska – "person" or "people"

in first position before a consonant it's pronounced [im] – mpkwaká – "thanks to"

n – "n" as in "nice" – nyky – "brother" or "sister"

in first position followed by a consonant it's pronounced [in] – ngá – "and"

p – "p" as in "people" – paba – "father"

before "y" it's pronounced [pw] as in Spanish "puente" – pyky – "heart"

s – "s" as in "sorry" – sahawá – "husband"

before "i" changes a little to "sh"; [ʃ] – sié – "water" or "river"

t – "t" as in "text" – yta – "hand"
w – "w" as in "wow!" – we – "house"
zh – as in "chorizo", but with the tongue to the back – zhysky – "head"

The accentuation of the words is like in Spanish on the second-last syllable except when an accent is shown: Bacata is Ba-CA-ta and Bacatá is Ba-ca-TA.

In case of repetition of the same vowel, the word can be shortened: fuhuchá ~ fuchá – "woman".^[35]

In Chibcha, words are made of combinations where sometimes vowels are in front of the word. When this happens in front of another vowel, the vowel changes as follows:^[37] a-uba becomes oba – "his (or her, its) face"
a-ita becomes eta – "his base"
a-yta becomes ata – "his hand" (note: ata also means "one")

Sometimes this combination is not performed and the words are written with the prefix plus the new vowel: a-ita would become eta but can be written as aeta, a-uba as aoba and a-yta as ayta

Criticism from the chibcha cabildos

This constructed language has raised several concerns on the part of the Chibcha groups recognized by the Colombian State due to accusations of cultural appropriation and for displaying itself as a living native language despite the fact that the Chibchas lost their language perhaps since the 18th century, so that there are no native speakers today. Another concern of the Chibcha councils is the commercialization of their linguistic heritage through courses or talks at public events, schools, squares and other places, whose members present themselves as legitimate representatives of the current Chibchas, or as their direct descendants. With these and other activities they raise money, including from national institutions and international organizations on behalf of the Chibcha and their revitalization, using the constructed language as an instrument to demonstrate their progress and legitimacy^[40]. On the other hand, the use of Mysca in social networks and public events has generated the feeling that Chibcha has been a language that has survived uninterruptedly since pre-Hispanic times, ignoring the historical process of acculturation and the struggle ancestral of the cabildos for the communal ownership of their lands, for the recognition of their identity by the State and against the exclusion and poverty to which the members and ancestors of the Chibcha cabildos have been subject.

Criticism from academia

This neo-language has also been involved in different academic controversies because on many occasions Myska is presented to the public as a natural language or, in the best of cases, as the closest approximation to the language spoken by the Chibchas, despite that its phonology, spelling, grammar, and even vocabulary, have not developed naturally but rather based on ancient writings, which is why its consistency and distance from the spelling of known linguistic sources is questioned. The presentation of this reconstructed language as an almost faithful approximation to the original or equivalent to the colony's Chibcha has aroused the following criticism:

• The creation of alternative vocabularies and grammars to the colonial sources distances the unsuspecting public from the true colonial linguistic sources, the main source of chibcha.
• It is a personalist proposal that does not allow criticism and from which other positions have been denigrated^[41].
• The new spelling reveals an obvious contradiction, how can a spelling be created if it cannot be contrasted or verified with native speakers or audio records that support it.
• One of the biggest controversies is the prosody of the language. Academics such as Diego Gómez have stated that the pronunciation of several Myska words do not correspond in almost any case to the reconstructions carried out by him and his team based on the comparative method. Furthermore, the muisquisms, words of Chibcha origin that were adapted to the Spanish of the area, are reinterpreted and pronounced differently than they have been traditionally pronounced. For example, the Muisquism 'cuba' (youngest son), is written kuhubá and pronounced [kuhu'baa], even though the inhabitants of Cundinamarca and Boyacá have traditionally pronounced it ['kuba].
• The use of this artificial language is part of a political agenda that seeks to highlight the relationship between oppressor and oppressed, although its disseminators are mostly privileged white-mestizo people with a high level of education, who have undertaken a process of re-ethnicization, ignoring the traditional authorities and organizations of the indigenous cabildos recognized by the Colombian State.