Cabécar language

The Cabécar language is an indigenous American language of the Chibchan language family spoken by the Cabécar people in the inland Turrialba Region, Cartago Province, Costa Rica. As of 2007, 2,000 speakers were monolingual.^[1] It is the only indigenous language in Costa Rica with monolingual adults.^[1] The language is also known by its dialect names Chirripó, Estrella, Telire, and Ujarrás.^[1]

Cabécar
Native to	Costa Rica
Region	Turrialba Region (Cartago Province)
Ethnicity	Cabécar people 13,000 (2011 census)^[1]
Native speakers	11,000 (2011)^[1] 2,000 monolingual (2015)^[1]
Language family	Chibchan Core-Chibchan Isthmic Western Isthmic Viceitic Cabécar
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cjp
Glottolog	cabe1245
ELP	Cabécar

History

Cabécar is considered to be one of a few "Chibcha-speaking tribes", categorized by similarities in the languages that they speak. Other Chibcha speaking tribes include the Bribri and the Boruca, also of Costa Rica. It is believed that the languages of the Chibcha speaking tribes shared a common ancestor around 8,000 years ago. However, differences in the languages are thought to have come about from the influence of outside people, including influences from Mesoamerica.^[2]

Geographic distribution

Cabécar is an endangered language spoken in Costa Rica. It is spoken by the Cabécar people, an indigenous group located near the Talamancan mountains of Costa Rica.^[2]

Dialects and varieties

There are two different dialects of Cabécar, each of which has more narrow dialects within it. One of these is spoken in the north, while the other is spoken in southern parts of Costa Rica.^[3]

Phonology

Cabécar uses a Latin alphabet with umlauts for (ë, ö), and tildes for (ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ).^[4] Cabécar has twelve vowels, five of which are nasalized.^[4]

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	p ⟨p⟩		t ⟨t⟩		t͡ʃ ⟨ch⟩	k ⟨k⟩
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩		d ⟨d⟩		d͡ʒ ⟨y⟩
Fricative				s ⟨s⟩		ʃ ⟨sh⟩		h ⟨j⟩
Affricate			t͡k ⟨tk⟩	t͡s ⟨ts⟩
Flap					ɽ ⟨r⟩
Nasal							ŋ ⟨n̈⟩

Vowels

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
High	oral	i ⟨i⟩		u ⟨u⟩
	nasal	ĩ ⟨i̱⟩		ũ ⟨u̱⟩
Near-high		ɪ ⟨ë⟩		ʊ ⟨ö⟩
Mid-high	oral	e ⟨e⟩		o ⟨o⟩
	nasal	ẽ ⟨e̱⟩		õ ⟨o̱⟩
Low	oral		a ⟨a⟩
	nasal		ã ⟨a̱⟩

^[5]

Grammar

Cabécar has a canonical word order of subject–object–verb.^[1]

References

1. Cabécar at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
2. Barrantes, R.; Smouse, P.E.; Mohrenweiser, H.W.; Gershowitz, H.; Azofeifa, J.; Arias, T.D.; Neel, J.V. (1990). "Microevolution in Lower Central America: Genetic Characterization of the Chibcha-Speaking Groups of Costa Rica and Panama, and a Consensus Taxonom Based on Genetic and Linguistic Affinity". American Journal of Human Genetics. 43: 63–84.
3. Margery-Peña, Enrique; Constenla-Umaña, Adolfo (16 February 2010). . University of Costa Rica. Archived from the original on 25 May 2019. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
4. Native-languages.org
5. Peña, Enrique Margery (1989). Diccionario cabécar-español, español-cabécar. Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica. ISBN 9789977671000.

Resources

• Quesada, J. D. (2007). The Chibchan Languages. Editorial Tecnologica de CR. 259pp
• Gavarrete, M. E. (2015). The challenges of mathematics education for Indigenous teacher training. Intercultural Education, 26(4), 326-337.
• Quesada, D. J. (2000). On Language Contact: Another Look at Spanish-speaking (Central) America. Hispanic Research Journal, 1(3), 229-242.
• Umaña, A. C. (2012). Chibchan languages. The indigenous languages of South America: A comprehensive guide, 2, 391.
• Instituto Clodomiro Picado: Tkäbe tso Costa Rica ska Tkäbe te sa shkawe wätkewaklä (serpientes de Costa Rica y prevención de mordeduras). San José: Instituto Clodomiro Picado; 2009:20.
• Lamounier Ferreira, A. (2013). ¿ En cabécar o español?: bilingüismo y diglosia en Alto Chirripó. Centro de Investigación e Identidad y Cultura Latinoamericana. Universidad de Costa Rica. Cuadernos Inter.c.a.mbio sobre Centroamérica y el Caribe Vol.10, no.12 (2013, segundo semestre) 105-119 páginas "Miradas sobre la diversidad indígena"
• González Campos, G. (2015). Nuevas consideraciones sobre la morfología verbal del cabécar. LETRAS; Vol 1, No 51 (2012); 33-58. Escuela de Literatura y Ciencias del Lenguaje
• Pacheco, M. Á. Q. (2013). Estado de la lengua cabécar en el poblado de San Rafael de Cañas, Buenos Aires (Puntarenas). Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha.
• Solórzano, S. F. (2010). Teclado chibcha: un software lingüístico para los sistemas de escritura de las lenguas bribri y cabécar. Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 36(2).
• Potter, E. (1998). The primary education of bilingual indigenous children on the Talamanca Bribri Reservation in Limón Province of Costa Rica/by Elsa Potter. Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
• Anderson, W. D. (2006). Medical Education: What Would the Shamans and Witches Think?*. Academic Medicine, 81(10), S138-S143.
• Margery Peña, Enrique. 1989. Diccionario Cabécar-Español, Español-Cabécar. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica. 676pp. Reprint 2003.
• Cervantes Gamboa, Laura. 1991. Observaciones etnomusicológicas acerca de tres cantos de cuna cabécares. Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha 10. 143-163.
• Elisabeth Verhoeven. 2012. Cabécar – a Chibchan language of Costa Rica. In Jeanette Sakel and Thomas Stolz (eds.), Amerindiana: Neue Perspektiven auf die indigenen Sprachen Amerikas, 151-169. Berlin: Akademie. [1]
• Pozas Arciniega, Ricardo. Yis ma̱ i shö (yo voy a decir), with Enrique Margery Peña (editor) and Francisco Amighetti (illustrator). Costa Rica: Ministerio de Educación Pública, 1996. ISBN 9977-60-122-4. 70pp

External links

• Recording of "2 children's chants of the Cabécar Indians" from the Indigenous Languages of Costa Rica Collection of Laura Cervantes at AILLA.
• Audio sample
• Numeral list 1-20
• Christian Bible - Matthew 2
• Video of documentary of Cabecar songs
• Video with audio and text of Christian hymn "Gloria" in Cabecar
• Interview discussing work on Cabecar dictionary (in Spanish)
• Cabécar DoReCo corpus compiled by Juan Diego Quesada, Stavros Skopeteas, Carolina Pasamonik, Carolin Brokmann and Florian Fischer. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and time-aligned morphological annotations.