Lenca language
Spoken in
Len
Lenca is a counting of the indigenous American languages Language or small language family, spoken in the Central American countries of Honduras and El Salvador by members of the indigenous Lenca people, or was.
The American linguist Lyle Campbell came in the 1970s to the conclusion that it is more of a small language family of two different individual languages , the Salvadoran Lenca in El Salvador and the Honduran Lenca in Honduras, RELATES. The distribution area of the Honduran Lenca is or was in the departments of Comayagua, Francisco Morazán, Intibucá, La Paz, Lempira, Santa Bárbara and Valle, the Salvadoran Lenca was known from the places Chilanga. In Honduras, the dialects Serkin ( Cerquín ), Kare ( Care), distinguished Lenka ( Lenca ) and Kolo ( Colo. ), in El Salvador the Poton ( Chilanga ).
According to Ethnologue, the language is almost extinct, the approximately 100,000 ethnic Lenca in Honduras and the approximately 37,000 ethnic Lenca in El Salvador are mostly gone over to the Spanish. Lyle Campbell reported in the 1970s, the Salvadoran Lenca be extinct with some confidence that he had the last speaker in 1970 shortly before his death can still consult. The Honduran Lenca was probably extinct or close to extinction; he had in 1974 can not find a speaker, but due to the greater expansion and heavier accessibility of the language area of the Honduran Lenca is not yet possible, a final statement on this.
A genetic relationship of the Lenca with other languages could not be demonstrated so far, so it is considered a language isolate or separate small language family. There are suspicions that Lenca could be related to the Xinca languages.
The code from ISO 639-3 is len.