Chibchan

Chibchan is the language family of the Isthmo-Colombian world. It reached from Mosquitia in eastern Central America through Costa Rica and Panama into northern Colombia.

The family takes its name from Chibcha, also called Muysccubun, the speech of the Muisca of the Colombian highlands. Reconstructed Proto-Chibchan words for manioc, maize, squash and tobacco show that Proto-Chibchan speakers were horticulturalists who spread across the isthmus in remote prehistory.

After the Spanish conquest the Church made Chibcha a vehicle of evangelization: from 1580 schools were ordered to teach in native languages, in 1606 the clergy was instructed to give religious teaching in Chibcha, and friars such as Bernardo de Lugo compiled its grammars. The Muisca language declined during the eighteenth century, and in 1770 Charles III banned its use.