Muysccubun
/ˌmwiːs.kʊˈbuːn/noun
The Indigenous Muisca language of the Bogotá savanna and surrounding regions of Colombia.
Did you know?Muysccubun is reconstructed largely from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish missionary vocabularies after Spanish conquest severely disrupted Muisca speech communities.
Etymological Timeline
Pre-Colonial Period
Muisca
muysca
“Person or people; the ethnonym associated with the Muisca community”
Pre-Colonial Period
Muisca
cubun
“Language or speech”
16th Century
Colonial Muisca
muysca cubun
“The Muisca language, recorded through Spanish missionary documentation”
17th Century
Colonial Spanish
lengua mosca / lengua muisca
“The Muisca tongue, as described in colonial grammatical and religious works”
20th–21st Century
English scholarship
Muysccubun
“A scholarly name for the historical Muisca language of Colombia”