Language
Chibchan, also known as muysca, mosca, or muska kubun, belongs to the language family of Paezan languages, or Macro-Chibcha. It was spoken across several regions of Central America and the north of South America. The Tayrona Culture and the U'wa, related to the Muisca Culture, spoke similar languages, which encouraged trade.
Many Chibcha words were absorbed or "loaned" into Colombian Spanish:
- Geography: Many names of localities and regions were kept. In some cases, the Spanish named cities with a combination of Chibchan and Spanish words, such as Santa Fe de Bogotá. Most of the municipalities of the Boyacá and Cundinamarca departments are derived from Chibchan names: Bogotá, Sogamoso, Zipaquirá, and many others.
- Fruits, such as curuba and uchuva.
- Relations: The youngest child is called cuba, or china for a girl; muysca means people.
Read more about this topic: Muisca People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. Although, in daily life, we do not always distinguish these words, we should do so consistently and thus deepen our understanding of our human predicament.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)