Comparación fonológica de la lengua muisca las lenguas uwa, barí y nasa yuwe

Abstract

This paper presents the synthesis of the research project titled “Phonological comparison of Muisca with Uwa, Barí and Nasa Yuwe”. This work involves a comparative exercise based on the inventories of phonemes in the languages mentioned and a list of glosses compiled from bibliographical resources. To carry out this task, some principles of comparative method were considered in order to: firstly, evaluate the likely correlate between geographical closeness, in the territories where the languages compared are spoken, and its cognation rates; secondly, verify, especially, the cognation rates between Muisca and Nasa Yuwe (a language with a genetic association with Chibchan family that is considered only probable); thirdly, analyze the sources to apply the comparative method to Colombian native languages; and, lastly, define limitations when applying this method. The conclusions entail the cognation rates among the languages analyzed, which are higher in the comparison Uwa-Muisca, and lower in the comparisons Barí-Muisca and Nasa Yuwe-Muisca, in the same order. Likewise, the Protochibchan change tendencies towards attested forms in the languages observed are described.