Atanque language

Atanque, also known as Atanques or Kankuamo, is an extinct Chibchan language of Colombia,^[1] once spoken in the area of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

There is very little information about the language, in particular with regard to grammar. Before its speakers switched to Spanish, Celedón (1892) managed to compile a brief dictionary. The following table shows a sample of the lexicon.

Despite being so poorly attested, Atanque clearly belongs to the Arwako subgroup of Chibcha. In particular, it appears to be very close to Wiwa in terms of phonetic innovations.^[2]

Traces of Atanque are also preserved in toponyms recorded in the region of Sierra Nevada.^[3] Suffixes like -ka "place, site" (e.g. in Susungá-ka, Chingá-ka, Kankuá-ka) or -kua "bower" (e.g. in Birintu-kua, Risátu-kua, Kamíntu-kua) are diagnostic of an Atanque source.^[4]

• Celedón, Rafael (1892). "Vocabulario de la lengua Atanques" (PDF). Proceedings of the 8th. International Congress of Americanists of 1890 (in Spanish). Paris: Ernest Leroux: 591–599. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03.
• Jackson, Robert T. (1996). "Fonología comparativa de los idiomas chibchas de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta". Boletín Museo del Oro (in Spanish) (38–39): 57–69.
• Leal Arias, Samuel (2019). Diccionario Español Kankuamo. Valledupar: Universidad Popular del Cesar.
• Salas, Andrés Alfonso Pastrana (2020). "Una configuración toponímica del resguardo indígena kankuamo". Lingüística y Literatura (in Spanish). 41 (77): 146–171. doi:10.17533/udea.lyl.n77a07. ISSN 0120-5587.

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