Cacaopera language

Cacaopera
Cacaopera
Native to	El Salvador
Region	Morazán Department
Ethnicity	Cacaopera people
Extinct	1974
Language family	Misumalpan Sumalpan Matagalpan Cacaopera; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ccr
Glottolog	caca1247
	Map of El Salvador's Indigenous Peoples at the time of the Spanish conquest: 1. Pipil people, 2. Lenca, 3. Kakawira o Cacaopera people, 4. Xinca, 5. Maya Ch'orti' people, 6. Maya Poqomam people, 7. Mangue o Chorotega.

Cacaopera is an extinct Misumalpan language formerly spoken in the department of Morazán in El Salvador by the Cacaopera people. It was closely related to Matagalpa, and slightly more distantly to Sumo, but was geographically separated from other Misumalpan languages.

The last semi-speakers of Cacaopera lived in the 1970s; none of them native speakers,^[2]^[3] the last of them died in 1974.^[1]

Phonology

Consonants

Cacaopera consonant phonemes^[4]
		Bilabial	Dento-alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ	k
Plosive	voiced	b	d
Fricative			s		x
Nasal		m	n
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Semivowel		w		j

Vowels

Misumalpan vowel phonemes^[4]
	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Open	a

Suprasegmentals

Stress is phonemic in Cacaopera.^[4]

References

1 2 "Cacaoperas o kakawiras – Ruta de Paz" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-05-07.
↑ Campbell, Lyle (1973). "MesoAmerican Languages Collection of Lyle Campbell". Archive of the Indigenous Language of Latin America. University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on July 1, 2016. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
↑ Campbell, Lyle (1975). "Cacaopera". Anthropological Linguistics. 17 (4): 146–153. ISSN 0003-5483.
1 2 3 Bertoglia, Mafalda (1989). "La fonología de la lengua cacaopera". Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica. 15 (1): 115–125. doi:10.15517/rfl.v15i1.19199.

External links

Recording of a semi-speaker of Cacaopera from 1973, from the MesoAmerican Languages Collection of Lyle Campbell at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America.

[:0-1] 1 2 "Cacaoperas o kakawiras – Ruta de Paz" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-05-07.

[2] Campbell, Lyle (1973). "MesoAmerican Languages Collection of Lyle Campbell". Archive of the Indigenous Language of Latin America. University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on July 1, 2016. Retrieved May 2, 2016.

[3] Campbell, Lyle (1975). "Cacaopera". Anthropological Linguistics. 17 (4): 146–153. ISSN 0003-5483.

[:1-4] 1 2 3 Bertoglia, Mafalda (1989). "La fonología de la lengua cacaopera". Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica. 15 (1): 115–125. doi:10.15517/rfl.v15i1.19199.

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[2]

[3]

[4]

v t e Languages of El Salvador
Official language	Spanish
Semi-official language	Nawat English
Indigenous languages	Nawat Cacaopera Q'eqchi' * Lenca Xincan Chʼortiʼ * Mangue
Foreign languages	English Italian Arabic German French Japanese Mandarin Chinese
Sign languages	Salvadoran Sign Language
Italics indicate extinct languages and * indicates extinct language in El Salvador but still spoken elsewhere El Salvador portal

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