There are two attested Lencan languages, both extinct.
Salvadoran Lencan was spoken in Chilanga and Potó. Lencans had arrived in El Salvador about 2,000 years B.P. and founded the site of Quelepa. One speaker remains.
Honduran Lencan was spoken with minor dialect differences in Intibucá, Opatoro, Guajiquiro, Similatón, and Santa Elena. Some phrases survive; it is not known if the entire language still exists.
The languages are not closely related; Swadesh estimated 3,000 years since separation. Arguedas Cortés reconstructs Proto-Lencan with 12 consonants and 5 vowels. Their external relationships are disputed. Inclusion within Macro-Chibchan has often been proposed; Campbell reported that he found no solid evidence for such a connection, but Constenla-Umaña proposed regular correspondence between Lencan, Misumalpan, and Chibchan. Campbell acknowledges that these claims of connection between Lencan, Misumalpan, and Chibchan have not yet been proved systematically, but he notes that Constenla-Umaña "presented evidence to support a relationship with two neighboring families : Misumalpan and Lencan, which constitute the Lenmichí Micro-Phylum. According to , the Lenmichi Micro-Phylum first split into Proto-Chibchan and Proto-Misulencan, the common intermediate ancestor of the Lencan and the Misumalpan languages. This would have happened around 9,726 years before the present or 7,720 B.C....The respective subancestors of the Lencan and the Misumalpan languages would have separated around 7,705 before the present, and Paya and the other intermediate ancestors of all the other Chibchan languages would have separated around 6,682." Another proposal links Lencan with the Xincanlanguage family. On the other hand, Jolkesky found some compelling lexical evidence, such as pronouns and kinship terms, which may point to the inclusion of the Lencan language family in the Hokanstock.
History
The Proto-Lencan homeland was most likely in central Honduras. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, the Lenca language was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporated northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of the Lempa river. While the Lenca people continue to live in the same region today, Lyle Campbell reported in the 1970s that he found only one speaker of the language in Chilanga, El Salvador, and none in Honduras. Campbell also concluded that Salvadoran Lenca was a distinct language from Honduran Lenca. Indigenous movements in both countries are attempting to revive the language, and recent press reports from Honduras indicate that elementary school textbooks in Salvadoran Lenca have been distributed to public schools in the region. A 2002 novel by Roberto Castillo, La guerra mortal de los sentidos, chronicles the adventures of the "Searcher for the Lenca Language."
