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| Muisca | |
|---|---|
| Mosca, Chibcha | |
| Muysc cubun | |
| Pronunciation | *[mʷɨskkuβun] |
| Native to | Colombia |
| Region | Bogotá savanna,Altiplano Cundiboyacense |
| Ethnicity | Muisca |
| Extinct | 18th century[1][3] |
| Revival | at least 150 speakers[citation needed] |
Chibchan
| |
| Dialects | |
| onlynumerals | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | chb |
| ISO 639-3 | chb |
| Glottolog | chib1270 |
 Chibchan languages. Chibcha itself is spoken in the southernmost area, in central Colombia | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Muisca orMuysca (*/ˈmɨska/ *[ˈmʷɨska][4]),[5] also known asChibcha,[6]Mosca andMuysca of Bogotá,[7] was a language spoken by theMuisca people, one of the manyindigenouscultures of the Americas, historically only in theSavanna of Bogotá. The Muisca inhabit theAltiplano Cundiboyacense of what today is the country ofColombia. "Chibcha" was, according toPedro Simón, the language's indigenous name,[6] however colonial-era dictionaries contradict this and indicate the indigenous name wasmuysccubun.[8]
The name of the languageMuysc cubun means "language of the people", frommuysca ("people") andcubun ("language" or "word"). Despite the disappearance of the language in the 17th century (approximately), several language revitalization processes are underway within the current Muisca communities. The Muisca people remain ethnically distinct and their communities are recognized by the Colombian state.[9] The language is within the language sub-group magdalénicos.[10]
ModernMuisca scholars such as Diego Gómez[11] have found that the variety of languages was much larger than previously thought and that in fact there was a Chibchadialect continuum that extended throughout the Cordillera Oriental from theSierra Nevada del Cocuy to theSumapaz Páramo.[11] The quick colonization of the Spanish and the improvised use of traveling translators reduced the differences between the versions of Chibcha over time.[12] The language recorded in dictionaries was only the dialect spoken around the colonial capital-city ofSantafé de Bogotá.[13]
An important revival-effort has been provided by the remaining Muisca communities or cabildos.[14]
Importantscholars who have contributed to the knowledge of the Muisca language includeJuan de Castellanos,Bernardo de Lugo,José Domingo Duquesne andEzequiel Uricoechea.
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The Muysca language is part of theChibcha linguistic family, which in turn belongs to the macro-Chibchan group. The Chibcha linguistic family includes several indigenous languages of Central America and Northwestern South America.
| Muysc cubun | Duit Boyacá | Uwa Boyacá N. de Santander Arauca | Barí N. de Santander | Chimila Cesar Magdalena | Kogui S.N. de Santa Marta | Guna Darién Gap | Guaymí Panama Costa Rica | Boruca Costa Rica | Maléku Costa Rica | Rama Nicaragua | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| chie | tia | siʔ | chibai | má | saka | sö | sö | tebej | tlijii | tukan | Moon | [15][16][17][18] |
| ata | atia | úbistia | intok | ti-tasu/nyé | kwati | éˇxi | dooka | one | [19][20] | |||
| muysca | dary | tsá | ngäbe | ochápaká | nkiikna | person man people | [21][22] | |||||
| aba | eba | á | maize | [23][24] | ||||||||
| pquyquy | tò | heart | [25] | |||||||||
| bcasqua | yút | purkwe | to die | [26][27] | ||||||||
| uê | háta | ju | uu | house | [28][29] | |||||||
| cho | mex | morén | good | [30][31] | ||||||||
| zihita | yén | pek-pen | frog | [27][32] |
In prehistorical times, in theAndean civilizations calledpreceramic, the population of northwestern South America migrated through theDarién Gap between theisthmus of Panama and Colombia. OtherChibchan languages are spoken in southern Central America and the Muisca and related indigenous groups took their language with them into the heart of Colombia where they comprised theMuisca Confederation, a cultural grouping.
As early as 1580 the authorities in Charcas,Quito, andSanta 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.[33]
In 1770, KingCharles III of Spain officially banned use of the language in the region[33] as part of ade-indigenization project. The ban remained in law until Colombia passed itsconstitution of 1991.
Since 2008 a Spanish–Muyscubun dictionary containing more than 3000 words has been published online. The project was partly financed by theUniversity of Bergen, Norway.[34]
The only public school inColombia currently teaching Chibcha (to about 150 children) is in the town ofCota, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) by road from Bogotá. The school is namedJizcamox (healing with the hands) in Chibcha.[14]
The sources of the Muysca language are seven documents prepared in the first decade of the 17th century and are considered a legitimate and reliable documentary set of the language.
Manuscript 158 of theNational Library of Colombia has a Grammar, an annex called "Modos de hablar en la lengua Mosca o Chipcha" [sic], a Spanish-Muysca vocabulary and a "Catheçismo en la lengua Mosca o Chipcha" [sic]. It was transcribed by María Stella González and published by theCaro y Cuervo Institute in 1987. According to the researcher, this manuscript "was written at times when the language was still spoken.[35]" González's transcription has been one of the most consulted works by modern linguists interested in the language.
Three documents from the Biblioteca Real de Palacio are compendiums of the Muysca language and are part of the so-called Mutis Collection, a set of linguistic-missionary documents of several indigenous languages of theNew Kingdom of Granada and theCaptaincy General of Venezuela, collected byMutis, due to the initial wishes of the Tsarina of RussiaCatherine the Great, who wanted to create a dictionary of all the languages of the world[36]
This manuscript is made up of three books: the first titled "De la gramática breve de la lengua Mosca"; the second contains three titles: "Confesionarios en la Lengua Mosca chibcha" [sic], "Oraciones en Lengua Mosca chibcha" [sic] and "Catecismo breve en Lengua Mosca chibcha" [sic]; The third book is titled "Bocabulario de la Lengua Chibcha o Mosca" [sic]. It was transcribed by Diego Gómez and Diana Girlado between 2012 and 2013.[37]
These manuscripts are actually a single vocabulary, one copies the other. The first was transcribed by Quesada Pacheco in 1991 and the second by Gómez y Giraldo between 2012 and 2013[38]
It was published in Madrid, Spain, in the year 1619. It consists of a grammar, a confessional in Spanish and a confessional in Muysca. For the elaboration of his work, Lugo devised a sort or type in order to express a vowel that was not part of the phonetic inventory of Spanish and that was necessary to capture if a correct pronunciation was wanted, he called it "Inverse Ipsilon" and today we know it as "The Lugo's y". In other sources it appears simply expressed with the graphemey.
Recently, a couple of doctrinal texts of the Muysca language were discovered in the Bodleian Library, which were sewn into the final part of an anonymous grammar of the Quechua language, published in Seville in 1603. The first of them is a brief Grammar, and the second a brief Christian Doctrine. These pamphlets are considered the earliest known texts of the General Language of theNew Kingdom of Granada and although their orthography is inconsistent and a little different from the known ones, these pamphlets are associated with the variety spoken inSantafé and its surroundings[39]
Because Muysc Cubun is an extinct language, various scholars asAdolfo Constenla (1984), González de Pérez (2006) andWillem Adelaar with the collaboration of Pieter Muysken (2007) have formulated different phonological systems taking into account linguistic documents from the 17th century and comparative linguistics. Myska did not have a lateral phoneme.
The proposal ofAdolfo Constenla,[40] Costa Rican teacher of the Chibcha languages, has been the basis of the other proposals and his appreciations are still valid, even more so because they were the result of the use of the comparative method with other Chibcha languages and lexicostatistics. In fact, Constenla's classification of the Chibcha languages remains the most accepted.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | tʲ | k | p͡kʷ /p͡k | ||
| Affricate | ts | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | h | ||||
| voiced | β | ɣ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Vibrant | r | ||||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
InThe languages of the Andes they present a phonologic chart based on the orthography developed during the colonial period, which diverges in some aspects from that used in Spanish according to the needs of the language.[41]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | tʲ | k | p͡kʷ /p͡k | ||
| Affricate | ts | tʃ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | s | ʃ | h | ||
| voiced | β | ɣ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Vibrant | r | ||||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
In his bookAproximación al sistema fonológico de la lengua muisca, González presents the following phonological table (González, 2006:57, 65, 122).
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | k | ||||
| Affricate | tʂ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʂ | h | |||
| voiced | β | ɣ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Approximant | (j) | (w) | |||||
González does not present approximants, although she considers [w] as a semivocalic extension of bilabial consonants, as Adolfo Constenla presented it at the time, for example incusmuy *[kusmʷɨ], */kusmɨ/, she considers it a phonetic characteristic and not a phonological one.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
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 andBacatá is Ba-ca-TA.
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| 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 |
The Myska alphabet consists of around 20 letters. The letters are pronounced more or less as follows:[42][43][44]
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"
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"
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"
n – "n" as in "nice" –nyky – "brother" or "sister"
p – "p" as in "people" –paba – "father"
s – "s" as in "sorry" –sahawá – "husband"
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"
In case of repetition of the same vowel, the word can be shortened:fuhuchá ~fuchá – "woman".[43]
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:[45]a-uba becomesoba – "his (or her, its) face"
a-ita becomeseta – "his base"
a-yta becomesata – "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 becomeeta but can be written asaeta,a-uba asaoba anda-yta asayta
Muysca is anagglutinative language, characterized by roots that are usually monosyllabic or bisyllabic (to a lesser extent longer), which combine to form extensive expressions. Typologically, it is a final core language. In addition, it is aninflectional language, which means that the roots receive prefixes and suffixes. The closest living language to Muysca isUwa. Compared to other northern Chibcha languages, Muysca presents more recent innovations.
The following greetings have been taken directly from written sources from the 17th century when the language was alive.
In Muysca, the noun voids morphemes of gender, number and case. In nouns denoting sex, it is necessary to add the corresponding name "fucha~fuhucha" or "cha".
fulano
fulano
muysca
person
cha
male
cho
good
guy
fulano muysca cha cho guy
fulano person male good COP
So-and-so is a good male
muysca
person
fuhucha
woman
cho
good
muysca fuhucha cho
person woman good
Good woman
The adjective muysca does not agree in gender or number with the noun. According to its form, it can be basic, derived or periphrastic.
The periphrastic form uses the3rd person + verbal root/name (+n) + ma-gue:
a-taba-n
a-taba-n ma-gue
3-meanness-FOC 2-COP
he/she/it is stingy
 | You can helpexpand this section with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Spanish. (April 2025)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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Counting 1 to 10 in Chibcha isata,boza,mica,muyhyca,hyzca,taa,cuhupqua,suhuza,aca,hubchihica.[34] The Muisca only had numbers one to ten and the number 20:gueta, used extensively in their complexlunisolarMuisca 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.
This list is a selection from the online dictionary and is sortable. Note the differentpotatoes and types ofmaize and their meaning.[34]
| Muysccubun | English |
|---|---|
| aba | "maize" |
| aso | "parrot" |
| ba | "finger" or "finger tip" |
| bhosioiomy | "potato [black inside]" (species unknown) |
| chihiza | "vein" (of blood) or "root" |
| cho | "good" |
| chyscamuy | "maize [dark]" (species unknown) |
| chysquyco | "green" or "blue" |
| coca | "finger nail" |
| fo | "fox" |
| foaba | Phytolacca bogotensis, plant used as soap |
| fun | "bread" |
| funzaiomy | "potato [black]" (species unknown) |
| fusuamuy | "maize [not very coloured]" (species unknown) |
| gaca | "feather" |
| gaxie | "small" |
| gazaiomy | "potato [wide]" (species unknown) |
| guahaia | "dead body" |
| guexica | "grandfather" and "grandmother" |
| guia | "bear" or "older brother/sister" |
| hichuamuy | "maize [of rice]" (species and meaning unknown) |
| hosca | "tobacco" |
| iome | "potato" (Solanum tuberosum) |
| iomgy | "flower of potato plant" |
| iomza | "potato" (species unknown) |
| iomzaga | "potato [small]" (species unknown) |
| muyhyza | "flea" (Tunga penetrans) |
| muyhyzyso | "lizard" |
| nygua | "salt" |
| nyia | "gold" or "money" |
| phochuba | "maize [soft and red]" (species and meaning unknown) |
| pquaca | "arm" |
| pquihiza | "lightning" |
| quye | "tree" or "leaf" |
| quyecho | "arrow" |
| quyhysaiomy | "potato [floury]" (species unknown) |
| quyiomy | "potato [long]" (species unknown) |
| 'saca | "nose" |
| sasamuy | "maize [reddish]" (species unknown) |
| simte | "owl [white]" |
| soche | "white-tailed deer" |
| suque | "soup" |
| tyba | "hi!" (to a friend) |
| tybaiomy | "potato [yellow]" (species unknown) |
| xiua | "rain" or "lake" |
| usua | "white river clay" |
| uamuyhyca | "fish";Eremophilus mutisii |
| xieiomy | "potato [white]" (species unknown) |
| xui | "broth" |
| ysy | "that", "those" |
| zihita | "frog" |
| zoia | "pot" |
| zysquy | "head" or "skull" |
Words ofMuysc cubun origin are still used in the department ofCundinamarca, of whichBogotá is the capital, and the department ofBoyacá, with capitalTunja. These includecuruba (Colombian fruitbanana passionfruit),toche (yellow oriole),guadua (a large bamboo used in construction) andtatacoa ("snake"). The Muisca descendants continue many traditional ways, such as the use of certain foods, use ofcoca 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,[46] "sword";espada,[47] "knife";cuchillo[48] and other words.
Most of the original Muisca names of the villages, rivers and national parks and some of the provinces in the central highlands of the ColombianAndes are kept or slightly altered. Usually the names refer to farmfields (ta), the Moon goddessChía, her husbandSué, names ofcaciques, thetopography of the region, built enclosures (ca) and animals of the region.[49]
Finally, in the 18th century, a new linguistic policy prohibited the use of indigenous languages and imposed the use of Spanish, according to a royal decree of 1770 from Charles III. This policy sought to achieve "that the different languages used in all domains become extinct and only Spanish is spoken.By this time, Muysca was already considered an extinct language(Ardila, 2016:264)
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