Kamëntsá, also rendered Camsá or called Sibundoy in older sources, is a language isolate and the native language of the Kamëntsá people of the Sibundoy Valley in Colombia's Putumayo Department, with about 4,000 speakers counted as of 2008. It has no confirmed relationship to any other language family; attempts to link it to the Chibchan languages have not succeeded, though some vocabulary shared with the Choco languages is attributed to historical contact between the two communities rather than common descent.
Facts
RegionSibundoy Valley, Putumayo Department, Colombia 1 Proto-Language StatusAs a language isolate, Kamentsa has no established relatives; attempts to connect it to the Chibchan languages have not succeeded. Fabre reports partial descent from the Quillasinga, whose own language is unattested, so no proto-language for Kamentsa itself has been reconstructed. 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Kamentsa Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Kamëntšá, commonly rendered Camsá or Sibundoy in old sources, is a language isolate and native language of the Kamëntšá people who primarily inhabit the Sibundoy Valley of the Putumayo Department in the south of Colombia.
Classification section
Kamëntšá appears to be a language isolate. Researchers have tried connecting it to the Chibchan languages without success.
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