Miskito-Matagalpan Languages

(Misumalpan languages), a family of languages spoken in Nicaragua and Honduras and formerly also in El Salvador by more than 30,000 people (1970, estimate). The family includes the Miskito language (eastern coast of northern Nicaragua and Honduras), the nearly extinct Matagalpan languages (in northwestern Nicaragua and at one time also in Honduras and El Salvador), and the Sumo languages (Ulva, Yosco, and Sumo proper, subdivided into the Tauahca, Panamaca, Boa, and Bauihca dialects), spoken in remote regions of northern Nicaragua and eastern Honduras.

The languages have simple vowel (long and short vowels) and consonant systems. Grammatical relations are expressed analytically, by suffixes (partly by fusion suffixes), agglutinative prefixes, and infixes. The noun distinguishes absolute and construct states, as in the Semitic languages, and possessive forms for three persons (“my,” “your [singular],” “his”). Case is expressed by postpositions and word order. The verb has person forms and aspectualtemporal forms. The grammatical category of number is absent in Miskito. A number of linguists classify the Miskito-Matagalpan languages in the Chibchan macrofamily.