Related Research Articles
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least six million Maya people, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory.
Mam is a Mayan language spoken by about half a million Mam people in the Guatemalan departments of Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, and Retalhuleu, and the Mexican states of Campeche and Chiapas. Thousands more make up a Mam diaspora throughout the United States and Mexico, with notable populations living in Oakland, California and Washington, D.C. The most extensive Mam grammar is Nora C. England's A grammar of Mam, a Mayan language (1983), which is based on the San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán dialect of Huehuetenango Department.
In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergative constructions are used vary among different languages.
Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in modern-day Syria.
In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and certain Indo-European languages. It has also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic languages. Ergative languages are classified into 2 groups: those that are morphologically ergative but syntactically behave as accusative and those that—on top of being ergative morphologically—also show ergativity in syntax. No language has been recorded in which both the morphological and syntactical ergative are present. Languages that belong to the former group are more numerous than those to the latter. Dyirbal is said to be the only representative of syntactic ergativity, yet it displays accusative alignment with certain pronouns.
Classic Maya is the oldest historically attested member of the Maya linguistic family. It is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian inscriptions of the classical period of the Maya civilization. It is also a direct descendant of Proto-Mayan and the common ancestor of the Cholan branch of Mayan languages. Contemporary descendants of classical Maya include Ch'ol and Ch'orti'. Speakers of these languages can understand many Classic Mayan words.
Crow is a Missouri Valley Siouan language spoken primarily by the Crow Nation in present-day southeastern Montana. The word, Apsáalooke, translates to "children of the raven." It is one of the larger populations of American Indian languages with 2,480 speakers according to the 1990 US Census.
The Chʼol are an indigenous people of Mexico, mainly in the northern Chiapas highlands in the state of Chiapas. As one of the Maya peoples, their indigenous language is from the Mayan language family, known also as Chʼol. According to the 2000 Census, there were 140,806 speakers of Chʼol in Chiapas, including 40,000 who were monolingual.
Tzeltal or Tseltal is a Mayan language spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas, mostly in the municipalities of Ocosingo, Altamirano, Huixtán, Tenejapa, Yajalón, Chanal, Sitalá, Amatenango del Valle, Socoltenango, Las Rosas, Chilón, San Juan Cancuc, San Cristóbal de las Casas and Oxchuc. Tzeltal is one of many Mayan languages spoken near this eastern region of Chiapas, including Tzotzil, Chʼol, and Tojolabʼal, among others. There is also a small Tzeltal diaspora in other parts of Mexico and the United States, primarily as a result of unfavorable economic conditions in Chiapas.
Tzotzil is a Maya language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Most speakers are bilingual in Spanish as a second language. In Central Chiapas, some primary schools and a secondary school are taught in Tzotzil. Tzeltal is the most closely related language to Tzotzil and together they form a Tzeltalan sub-branch of the Mayan language family. Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Chʼol are the most widely spoken languages in Chiapas besides Spanish.
Halkomelem is a language of various First Nations peoples of the British Columbia Coast. It is spoken in what is now British Columbia, ranging from southeastern Vancouver Island from the west shore of Saanich Inlet northward beyond Gabriola Island and Nanaimo to Nanoose Bay and including the Lower Mainland from the Fraser River Delta upriver to Harrison Lake and the lower boundary of the Fraser Canyon.
The Chʼortiʼ language is a Mayan language, spoken by the indigenous Maya people who are also known as the Chʼortiʼ or Chʼortiʼ Maya. Chʼortiʼ is a direct descendant of the Classic Maya language in which many of the pre-Columbian inscriptions using the Maya script were written. Chʼortiʼ is the modern version of the ancient Mayan language Chʼolan.
Georgian grammar has many distinctive and extremely complex features, such as split ergativity and a polypersonal verb agreement system.
The Kaqchikel language is an indigenous Mesoamerican language and a member of the Quichean–Mamean branch of the Mayan languages family. It is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala. It is closely related to the Kʼicheʼ (Quiché) and Tzʼutujil languages.
The Qʼeqchiʼ language, also spelled Kekchi, Kʼekchiʼ, or Kekchí, is one of the Mayan languages from the Quichean branch, spoken within Qʼeqchiʼ communities in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.
Chuj is a Mayan language spoken by around 40,000 members of the Chuj people in Guatemala and around 3,000 members in Mexico. Chuj is a member of the Qʼanjobʼalan branch along with the languages of Tojolabʼal, Qʼanjobʼal, Akateko, Poptiʼ, and Mochoʼ which, together with the Chʼolan branch, Chuj forms the Western branch of the Mayan family. The Chujean branch emerged approximately 2,000 years ago. In Guatemala, Chuj speakers mainly reside in the municipalities of San Mateo Ixtatán, San Sebastián Coatán and Nentón in the Huehuetenango Department. Some communities in Barillas and Ixcán also speak Chuj. The two main dialects of Chuj are the San Mateo Ixtatán dialect and the San Sebastián Coatán dialect.
Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with another 10,000-15,000 (estimated) living off island in parts of the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam. It is the second-most widely spoken native language of the Federated States of Micronesia the first being Chuukese.
Qʼanjobʼal is a Mayan language from the Q'anjobalan branch spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. According to 1998 estimates compiled by SIL International in Ethnologue, there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. In Chiapas, Mexico, municipalities where the Qʼanjobʼal language is spoken include Catazajá, Amatenango de la Frontera, La Trinitaria, Bella Vista, Frontera Comalapa, Las Margaritas and Maravilla Tenejapa. In Huehuetenango, the municipalities where the language is spoken are San Juan Ixcoy, San Pedro Soloma, Santa Eulalia, Santa Cruz Barillas (Yalmotx), San Rafael La Independencia, and San Miguel Acatán. Qʼanjobʼal is taught in public schools through Guatemala's intercultural bilingual education programs.
Bororo (Borôro), also known as Boe, is the sole surviving language of a small family believed to be part of the Macro-Gê languages. It is spoken by the Bororo, hunters and gatherers in the central Mato Grosso region of Brazil.
Kʼicheʼ, or Quiché, is a Mayan language spoken by the Kʼicheʼ people of the central highlands in Guatemala and Mexico. With over a million speakers, Kʼicheʼ is the second most widely-spoken language in the country, after Spanish. It is one of the most widely-spoken indigenous American languages in Mesoamerica.
References
- Aulie, H. Wilbur; Evelyn W. Aulie, eds. (1998) [1978]. Diccionario Chʼol de Tumbalá, Chiapas, con variaciones dialectales de Tila y Sabanilla [Chʼol Dictionary of Tumbalá, Chiapas with dialectal variations from Tila and Sabanilla]. Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas "Mariano Silva y Aceves", No. 121. Emily Stairs (electronic reproduction with March 2005 corrections, 2nd ed.). Coyoacán, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. ISBN 968-31-0291-3. OCLC 42692322.
- de Aulie, Wilbur H.; de Aulie, Evelyn W. (2009). Diccionario chꞌol de Tumbalá, Chiapas, con variaciones dialectales de Tila y Sabanilla (in Spanish). Mexico: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
- Coon, Jessica (2010). "Complementation in Chol (Mayan): A Theory of Split Ergativity" (electronic version). Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Retrieved 2010-07-15. [includes a grammatical sketch of the language]
- Schumann, Otto Gálvez (1973). La lengua Chol de Tila (Chiapas). UNAM..
- Warkentin, Viola; Scott, Ruby (1980). Gramática Chʼol. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- "Estadística básica de la población hablante de lenguas indígenas nacionales 2015". site.inali.gob.mx. Archived from the original on 2019-10-26. Retrieved 2019-10-26.
- Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) (2011). Chꞌol: Ityoj tsꞌijbuñtyel laktyꞌañ chꞌol / Chꞌol: Norma de escritura de la lengua chꞌol (PDF) (in Spanish). México : El Instituto; Chiapas: Gobierno del Estado. Secretaría de Educación : Universidad Intercultural de Chiapas. ISBN 978-607-7538-54-7.
