Salvadoran Lencan

Salvadoran Lenca 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 in Poto.

Salvadoran Lenca is of the small language family of Lencan languages that consists of two languages one of which is the Salvadoran Lenca and the Honduran Lenca, both which are now extinct. There have been attempt to link the Lencan language to other languages within their groupings but there has been no success.

As of 2012, Mario Salvador Hernández of Guatajiagua is the last speaker of Lenca Potón, which differs from the version spoken in Chilanga, where the language has disappeared. Research in 2004 by the University of Central America recorded 380 words, five vowels and 16 consonants, alternation between “g” and “k”, with reduplication to create plurals from singular forms.