Chocoan languages

Chocoan consists of two known branches and at least four unclassified languages.

• The Emberá languages (Chocó proper, Cholo)
• Wounaan (Noanamá, Waunana, Woun Meu), Cueva †
• ?Sinúfana (Cenufara) †
• Anserma
  • Caramanta †
• ? Arma †

At least Arma, Cueva and Caramanta are extinct.

The Emberá group consists of two languages mainly in Colombia with over 60,000 speakers that lie within a fairly mutually intelligible dialect continuum. Ethnologue divides this into six languages. Kaufman (1994) considers the term Cholo to be vague and condescending. Noanamá has some 6,000 speakers on the Panama-Colombia border.

Jolkesky (2016)

Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):

• Choko
  • Waunana
  • Embera
    • Southern
      • Embera Baudo
      • Embera Chami
      • Epena
    • Northern
      • Embera Katio
      • Embera Darien

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Guahibo, Kamsa, Paez, Tukano, Witoto-Okaina, Yaruro, Chibchan, and Bora-Muinane language families due to contact.

Genetic links between Choco and Chibchan had been proposed by Lehmann (1920). However, similarities are few, some of which may be related to the adoption of maize cultivation from neighbors.

Choco has been included in a number of hypothetical phylum relationships:

• within Morris Swadesh's Macro-Leco
• Antonio Tovar, Jorge A. Suárez, and Robert Gunn: related to Cariban
• Čestmír Loukotka (1944): Southern Emberá may be related to Paezan, Noanamá to Arawakan
• within Paul Rivet and Loukotka's (1950) Cariban
• Constenla Umaña and Margery Peña: may be related to Chibchan
• within Joseph Greenberg's Nuclear Paezan, most closely related to Paezan and Barbacoan
• with Yaruro according to Pache (2016)

For reconstructions of Proto-Chocó and Proto-Emberá by Constenla and Margery (1991), see the corresponding Spanish article.