| Lencan | |
| State: | Honduras, El Salvador |
| Ethnicity: | Lenca people |
| Extinct: | No speakers could be located in 1974. |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Lencan |
| Iso3: | none |
| Glotto: | lenc1242 |
| Glottorefname: | Lenca-Honduras |
Honduran Lenca is a poorly attested language that was spoken with minor dialect differences in Intibuca, Opatoro, Guajiquiro (Huajiquiro), Similatón (modern Cabañas), and Santa Elena. The name can be misleading; although primarily spoken in Honduras, it was also spoken in El Salvador close to the Honduran border. It is distantly related to Salvadoran Lenca.
Honduran Lenca can be divided into four dialects: western (Intibuca), central (Santa Elena, Chinacla), eastern (Guajiquiro, Opatoro), and southern (Similaton).[2]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Plosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Rhotic | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Glide | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | ||
The basic syllable structure is CVC. It is hypothesized that earlier forms of the language had a CV structure, but shifted towards CVC through final vowel deletion. Stress is poorly documented, but is thought to have been syllable final.
Finite verbs are optionally suffixed for tense, and obligatorily for subject. Pronominal objects are expressed by proclitics. Nonfinite forms, such as gerunds and participles, are formed through suffixes. There are two verbs that more or less correspond to Spanish ser and estar.