Macro-Chibchan is a proposed grouping of the languages of the Lencan, Misumalpan, and Chibchan families into a single large phylum (macrofamily).
History
The Lencan and Misumalpan languages were once included in the Chibchan family proper, but were excluded pending further evidence as that family became well established. Kaufman (1990) finds the Chibchan–Misumalpan connection convincing, if as yet unsubstantiated, though Campbell (1997) finds it doubtful. The Xincan family was once included in Macro-Chibchan, but this is now doubtful.
Constenla (2005) calls this proposed phylum Lenmichí (Lencan–Misumalpan–Chibchan) and provides 85 cognate sets which exhibit regular sound correspondences among the three families. He suggests that Chocoan may be related as well.
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[1] also found lexical similarities between Chibchan and Misumalpan. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.
^Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
^Constenla Umaña, Adolfo (1987). "Elementos de Fonología Comparada de las Lenguas Misumalpas," Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica 13 (1), 129-161.
^Schumann Galvez, Otto. 1966. Fonemica del dialecto xinca de Chiquimulilla. In Antonio Pompa y Pompa (ed.), Summa antropológica de homenaje a Roberto J. Weitlaner, 449-454. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).
^del Río Urrutia, Ximena. 2004. El lenca de Chilanga: Léxico. Revista de Filología y Lingüística XXX. 289-313.
^Arguedas Cortés, Gilda Rosa. 1988. Los Fonemas Segmentales del Protolenca: Reconstrucción Comparativa. Filología y lingüística XIV. 89-109.
^Constenla Umaña, Adolfo (1987). "Elementos de Fonología Comparada de las Lenguas Misumalpas," Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica 13 (1), 129-161.
Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Kaufman, Terrence (1990). "Language History in South America: What we know and how to know more." In Doris L. Payne, ed. Amazonian Linguistics, pp. 13–74. Austin: University of Texas Press.