The Dictionary
This dictionary, made by me, Olivia, was made out of a need to make a dictionary of the Muisca language more easily accessible to Anglophones, to aid in documenting the language in more places and to document its pronunciation.
The Language
Bogotá Muisca, Chibcha, Muisca, Muysca, Muysc( )cubun or Mosca was the language spoken by the indigenous Muisca communities of large parts of modern Cundinamarca, Bogotá and Boyacá in what is now Colombia. Today it is dead, however, there are movements underway for its revival. It was primarily documented in Spanish documents since the colonisation of Colombia up until its death around the late 1700s. Its sister language(s), Uwa, continue to be spoken today in northern Boyacá and are incredibly important in its reconstruction. It is part of the Chibchan family of languages of Central America, Colombia and small parts of Venezuela and lies within its Magdalenic branch, being most closely related to Uwa (Tunebo) and Chimila.
The Pronunciation
This dictionary uses the reconstructed pronunciation of Bogotá Muisca by Diego F. Gómez and the Muysc Cubun dictionary at https://muysca.cubun.org , not any of the pronunciations proposed by Constenla, Gonzales or Adelaar & Muysken. These are subject to change as reconstruction continues.
The Orthography
One major issue in the documentation of the language is the colonial orthography, its irregularity and its arbitrary and insufficient representation of the phonemes of the Muisca language(s). This is why, with utmost respect to the language and with only a desire to document it better, I use my own orthography to write it down, which I also make use of when writing it outside of this dictionary in my own (free time) writings. I would like to emphasize that this orthography is not attested in any writings and not used outside what I write, and that it should not be taken as any kind of 'official' orthography, but rather merely as a better way of writing the language that is faithful to its phonology and history.
Said orthography is mainly based on reconstruction of earlier stages of the language and the already existing orthography and phonology of one of its sister languages, Central Uwa, making it a deeper orthography that uses historical aspects of the development of the Muisca language to more efficiently write its phonemes.
| Grapheme | A a | B b | C c | D d | E e | G g | H h | I i | J j | M m |
| Phoneme | a | b | k kʲ | d͡z | e | g | ʔ | i | h | m |
| Grapheme | N n | O o | Qu qu | R r | S s | T t | U u | V v | W w | Y y |
| Phoneme | n | o | k kʲ | ∅ | s | t tʲ | u ◌ʷ | w̃ | w | j |
| Grapheme | Ñ ñ | Ş ş | Ģ ģ | Ŝ ŝ | L l | |||||
| Phoneme | z | ʃ | ʒ | t͡ʃ | ɾ |
The Source
As a source for this dictionary I used all information available on the website https://muysca.cubun.org.
The Author
I am Olivia Astra Isolda Cornelissen-Herrera, a half-Colombian immigrant in the Netherlands. A few years ago I found a special interest in the Muisca (and later the Chibchan languages in general) language and spent the next few years rigorously learning it via the dictionary mentioned earlier and writings from the time, now owning a small community for its study and having made a few attempts at teaching it to others (which this dictionary is also aiming to aid in, not just for me, hopefully). I have no academic history, and am a hobby linguist, though am planning to hopefully study Linguistics at the university of Leiden. I speak Spanish and Dutch as my native languages and also speak English, Bogotá Muisca and German, and have always had an interest in languages.
You can also contact me in the following places: