Ngäbere / Guaymí

Ngäbere

VulnerableChiriquí & Bocas del Toro, Panamá; Chocó, Colombia

Ngäbere is the language of the Ngäbe people, the largest indigenous group in Panamá. It is spoken primarily in the Ngäbe-Buglé comarca — a semi-autonomous indigenous territory — as well as in parts of Colombia. While the speaker population is relatively large, the language faces pressure from Spanish and is classified as vulnerable due to declining intergenerational transmission in some communities.

At a Glance

Speakers: Approximately 200,000 speakers
Language family: Chibchan — Guaymian
Writing system: Latin script
ISO 639-3 code: gym
Countries: Panama, Colombia

Key Facts

1
Ngäbere belongs to the Chibchan family, one of the most linguistically diverse families in the Americas.
2
The Ngäbe-Buglé comarca was established in 1997, giving the Ngäbe and Buglé peoples a degree of territorial and cultural autonomy.
3
Ngäbere is taught in some schools within the comarca as part of bilingual intercultural education programs.
4
The language has a complex system of evidentiality — grammatical markers that indicate the source of information.

Numbers Quiz: 0–100

Learn to count in Ngäbere / Guaymí. You'll be shown a number and asked to identify the correct word — or vice versa.

Start Quiz →