Misumalpan

Misumalpan is a small language family of the Mosquitia lowlands along the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras, taking its name from its three branches, Miskito, Sumo and Matagalpa. The Sumo branch comprises Mayangna and Ulwa in the forested river basins, while the Matagalpan languages were spoken in the inland highlands.

The languages drew loanwords from neighbouring Arawak and Carib speakers and, after European contact, from English, Dutch and German traders. From the late 1600s the Miskito, allied with English settlers and buccaneers through the Kingdom of Mosquitia, carried their speech along the coast as a regional lingua franca, and neighbouring Sumo communities gradually shifted to it.