K’iche’ | |
---|---|
Quiché | |
Qatzijob'al | |
Pronunciation | [kʼiˈtʃeʔ] |
Native to | Guatemala |
Region | Central highlands |
Ethnicity | K'iche' |
Native speakers | 2,330,000 (2000) [1] 300,000 monolinguals |
Mayan
| |
Early form | |
Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
Regulated by | Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | quc |
Glottolog | kich1262 [2] |
K'iche' language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
K’iche’ ( [kʼiˈtʃeʔ] , also Qatzijob'al "our language" to its speakers), or Quiché ( /kiːˈtʃeɪ/ [3] ), is a Maya language of Guatemala, spoken by the K'iche' people of the central highlands. With over a million speakers (some 7% of Guatemala's population), K'iche' is the second-most widely spoken language in the country after Spanish. Most speakers of K'iche' languages also have at least a working knowledge of Spanish.
Spanish or Castilian is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native speakers in the Americas and Spain. It is a global language and the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.
The Central dialect is the most commonly used in the media and education. The literacy rate is low, but K'iche' is increasingly taught in schools and used on radio. The most famous work in the Classical K'iche' language is the Popol Vuh (Popol Wu'uj in modern spelling).
Popol Vuh is a cultural narrative that recounts the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people who inhabit the Guatemalan Highlands northwest of present-day Guatemala City.
Kaufman (1970) divides the K'iche' complex into the following five dialects, with the representative municipalities given as well (quoted in Par Sapón 2000:17).
Nahualá is a municipality in the Sololá department of Guatemala. The town is sometimes known as Santa Catarina Nahualá, in honor of the town’s patron saint, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, but the official name is just "Nahualá". Santa Clara La Laguna is a municipality in the Sololá department of Guatemala. Santa Lucía Utatlán is a municipality in the Sololá department of Guatemala. |
Santa María Chiquimula is a municipality in the Totonicapán department of Guatemala. Located in the western highlands of Guatemala at an altitude of 2130 meters. The municipality has a territory of 211 km2 and a population of around 48,525 people in 2012. The Mayan K’iche’ language is spoken among the indigenous people here, but Spanish is also widely spoken. The main products of the region are corn and black beans. San Antonio Ilotenango is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. Santa Cruz del Quiché is a city in Guatemala. It serves as the capital of the El Quiché department and the municipal seat of Santa Cruz del Quiché municipality. The city is located at 15.03°N 91.15°W, at an elevation of 2,021 m above sea level. The urban population was about 21,000 people in 2003. It has an airport.
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The Nahualá dialect of K'iche' shows some differences from other K'iche' dialects. It preserves an ancient Proto-Mayan distinction between five long vowels (aa, ee, ii, oo, uu) and five short vowels (a, e, i, o, u). It is for that conservative linguistic feature that Guatemalan and foreign linguists have actively sought to have the language called K'ichee rather than K'iche' or Quiché.
K'iche' has a rather conservative phonology. It has not developed many of the innovations found in neighboring languages, such as retroflex consonants or tone.
Stress is not phonemic. It occurs on the final syllable, and on every other syllable before the final in an iambic pattern.
An iamb or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable. This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
Unstressed vowels are frequently reduced (to [ ɨ ] or [ ə ]) or elided altogether, often producing consonant clusters even at the beginnings of words. For example, sib'alaj "very" may be pronounced [siɓlaχ], and je na la' "thus" [χenðaʔ].
K'iche' dialects differ in their vowel systems. Historically, K'iche' had a ten-vowel system: five short and five long. Some dialects (for instance, Nahualá and Totonicapán) retain the ten-vowel system. Others (for instance, Cantel) have reduced it to a six-vowel system with no length distinctions: short /a/ has become /ə/ in these dialects, and the other short vowels have merged with their long counterparts. [4] Different conventions for spelling the vowels have been proposed, including by the Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín, the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala. The table below shows the two vowel systems, and several of the spelling systems that have been proposed.
Phonemes | Spelling | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Ten-vowel | Six-vowel | PLFM | SIL | ALMG |
/a/ | /ə/ | a | ä | a |
/aː/ | /a/ | aa | a | |
/e/ | /e/ | e | ë | e |
/eː/ | ee | e | ||
/i/ | /i/ | i | ï | i |
/iː/ | ii | i | ||
/o/ | /o/ | o | ö | o |
/oː/ | oo | o | ||
/u/ | /u/ | u | ü | u |
/uː/ | uu | u |
Vowels typically undergo syncope in penultimate syllables, allowing for a wide array of complex onsets. Diphthongs are found in recent loanwords.
K'iche' has both pulmonic stops and affricates, p /p/, t /t/, tz /ts/, ch /tʃ/, k /k/, and q /q/, and glottalized counterparts b’ /ɓ/, t’ /t’/, tz’ /ts’/, ch’ /tʃ’/, k’ /k’/, and q’ /q’/. The glottalized /ɓ/ is a weak implosive, while the other glottalized consonants are ejectives. The pulmonic stops and affricates are typically aspirated.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasals | m[m] | n[n] | ||||||
Glottalized plosive | b' [ɓ] | t' [tʼ] | k' [kʼ] | q' [qʼ] | ||||
Aspirated plosive | p[pʰ] | t[tʰ] | k[kʰ] | q[qʰ] | ' [ʔ] | |||
Glottalized affricate | tz' [tsʼ] | ch' [tʃʼ] | ||||||
Aspirated affricate | tz[tsʰ] | ch[tʃʰ] | ||||||
Fricative | s[s] | x[ʃ] | j[x~χ] | h[h] | ||||
Approximant | w[ʋ] | l[l] | r[ɻ] | y[j] |
In West Quiche, the approximants l /l/, r /ɻ/, y /j/, and w /w/ devoice and fricate to [ɬ], [ʂ], [ç], and [ʍ] word-finally and often before voiceless consonants. In some dialects,[ which? ] intervocalic /l/ alternates between [l] and [ð], a highly unusual sound change. The fricative [ð] is most common between the vowels o and a and between two o's, and occurs more often than not between two a's.
Complex onsets are very common in K'iche', partially due to the active process of penultimate syncope. Complex codas are rare, except when the first member of the complex coda is a phonemic glottal stop, written with an apostrophe. The sonorants /m, n, l, r/ may be syllabic.
Historically, different orthographies have been used to transliterate the K'iche' languages. The classic orthography of Father Ximénez who wrote down the Popol Vuh is based on the Spanish orthography and has been replaced by a new standardized orthography defined by the ALMG (Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala). Ethnohistorian and Mayanist Dennis Tedlock uses his own transliteration system which is completely different from any of the established orthographies, but this system will not be given here.
Ximénez's classical orthography | Are v xe oher tzíh varal Quíche ubí. |
ALMG orthography | Are’ uxe’ ojer tzij waral K’iche’ ub’i’. |
(Ximénez's Spanish translation) | Este es el principio de las Antiguas historias aquí en el Quiché. |
(Tedlock's English translation) | "This is the beginning of the ancient word, here in the place called Quiché." |
Like other Mayan languages, K'iche' uses two sets of agreement markers—known to Mayanists as "Set A" and "Set B" markers—which can appear on both nouns and verbs. "Set A" markers are used on nouns to mark possessor agreement, and on verbs to agree with the transitive subject (ergative case). "Set B" markers are used on verbs to agree with the transitive object or the intransitive subject (absolutive case).
Before a consonant | Before a vowel | |
First person singular | nu- or in- | w- or inw- |
Second person singular | a- | aw- |
Third person singular | u- | r- |
First person plural | qa- | q- |
Second person plural | i- | iw- |
Third person plural | ki- | k- |
First person singular | in- |
Second person singular | at- |
Third person singular | Ø- |
First person plural | oj- (uj- in some varieties) |
Second person plural | ix- |
Third person plural | e- (eb'- in some varieties) |
K'iche' distinguishes six pronouns, classified by person and number. Gender and case are not marked on pronouns. Pronouns are often omitted, as subject and object agreement are obligatorily marked on the verb.
In orthography | In IPA | |
First person singular | in | /in/ |
Second person singular | at | /at/ |
Third person singular | are' | /aɾeʔ/ |
First person plural | uj | /uχ/ |
Second person plural | ix | /iʃ/ |
Third person plural | iyare' | /ijaɾeʔ/ |
Verbs are highly morphologically complex, and can take numerous prefixes and suffixes serving both inflectional and derivational purposes.
The table below shows the inflectional template of a K'iche' verb. Agreement follows an ergative/absolutive pattern. Subjects of transitive verbs are indexed using Set A markers. Intransitive subjects and transitive objects are indexed using Set B markers. Aspect and mood are also indicated, as is movement: the prefix ul- in the movement slot indicates movement towards the speaker, while the prefix e- (or b'e- in some varieties) indicates movement away.
Aspect/mood | Set B (absolutive) | Movement | Set A (ergative) | Stem | Status suffix | |
k- | at- | b'in | -ik | katb'inik "You walk." | ||
x- | at- | inw- | il | -o | xatinwilo "I saw you." | |
ch- | Ø- | a- | k'am | -a' | chak'ama' "Carry it!" | |
k- | Ø- | ul- | wa' | -oq | kulwa'oq "S/he comes and eats." |
The last morpheme on a verb, the so-called "status suffix", is a portmanteau morph whose form determined by a rather complicated set of rules. Relevant factors include:
The examples above involve verbs with simple stems. Verb stems may also be morphologically complex. Complex stems may involve voice suffixes
or derivational suffixes, many of which form verb stems from other parts of speech. For instance, the versive suffix -ir or -ar forms verb stems from adjectives: utz "good", -utz-ir- "get good"; nim "big", -nim-ar- "get big." Multiple suffixes can appear within a single stem: -nim-ar- "get big", -nim-ar-isa- "enlarge (something)", -nim-ar-isa-x- "be enlarged."
As with all Mayan languages, K'iche' has an ergative pattern of verb agreement, and often uses verb-object-subject (VOS) word order. Most modern speakers use SOV, SVO, and VSO word orders interchangeably. Language purists have tried to preserve the traditional verb-initial word order, while influence from Spanish (an SVO language) promotes a subject-initial order.
Contrary to the way many other languages use high pitch in child directed speech (babytalk), K'iche' babytalk has been shown not to use high pitch. Mayans in fact lower their pitch slightly when they speak to children, due to the fact that in the Quiche Mayan culture high pitch is very often used to address persons of high status. [5]
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million Maya peoples, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight more within its territory.
Kʼicheʼ are indigenous peoples of the Americas and are one of the Maya peoples. The Kʼicheʼ language is a Mesoamerican language in the Mayan language family. The highland Kʼicheʼ states in the pre-Columbian era are associated with the ancient Maya civilization, and reached the peak of their power and influence during the Mayan Postclassic period. The meaning of the word Kʼicheʼ is "many trees". The Nahuatl translation, Cuauhtēmallān "Place of the Many Trees (People)", is the origin of the word Guatemala. Quiché Department is also named for them. Rigoberta Menchú, an activist for indigenous rights who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, is perhaps the best-known Kʼicheʼ.
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 state of 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.
Tzeltal or Tsʼeltal 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.
Halkomelem is a language of various First Nations peoples in 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.
Xquic is a mythological figure known from the 16th century Kʼicheʼ manuscript Popol Vuh. She was the daughter of one of the lords of Xibalba, called Cuchumaquic, Xibalba being the Maya Underworld. Noted particularly for being the mother of the Maya Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, she is sometimes considered to be the Maya goddess associated with the waning moon. However, there is no evidence for this in the Popol Vuh text itself.
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, spoken within Qʼeqchiʼ communities in 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.
Ixil (Ixhil) is one of the 21 different Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala. According to historical linguistic studies Ixil emerged as a separate language sometime around the year 500AD. It is the primary language of the Ixil people, which comprises the three towns of San Juan Cotzal, Santa Maria Nebaj, and San Gaspar Chajul in the Guatemalan highlands. There is also an Ixil speaking migrant population in Guatemala City and the United States. Although there are slight differences in vocabulary in the dialects spoken by people in the three different Ixil towns, they are all mutually intelligible and should be considered dialects of a single language.
Itzaʼ is a critically endangered Mayan language spoken by the Itza people near Lake Peten Itza in north-central Guatemala. The language has only 25 fluent speakers and 60 nonfluent speakers.
Mopan is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. It is spoken by the Mopan people who live in the Petén Department of Guatemala and in the Maya Mountains region of Belize. There are between three and four thousand Mopan speakers in Guatemala and six to eight thousand in Belize.
The Uspanteko is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to Kʼicheʼ. It is spoken in the Uspantán and Playa Grande Ixcán municipios, in the Department El Quiché. It is also one of only three Mayan languages to have developed contrastive tone. It distinguishes between vowels with high tone and vowels with low tone.
Tzʼutujil is a Mayan language spoken by the Tzʼutujil people in the region to the south of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Tzʼutujil is closely related to its larger neighbors, Kaqchikel and Kʼicheʼ. The 2002 census found 60,000 people speak Tzʼutujil as their mother tongue. The two Tzʼutijil dialects are Eastern and Western.
Tsimshian, known by its speakers as Sm'álgyax, is a dialect of the Tsimshian language spoken in northwestern British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. Sm'algyax means literally "real or true language."
Qʼanjobʼal is a Mayan language 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. Municipalities where the Qʼanjobʼal language is spoken include 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.
Classical Kʼicheʼ was an ancestral form of the modern-day Kʼicheʼ language, which was spoken in the highland regions of Guatemala around the time of the 16th century Spanish conquest of Guatemala. Classical Quiché has been preserved in a number of historical Mesoamerican documents, lineage histories, missionary texts and dictionaries, and is the language in which the renowned highland Maya creation account Popol Vuh is written.
Cauque Mayan is a mixed language, a Kʼicheʼ (Quiché) base relexified by Kaqchikel (Cakchiquel). During the colonial era, Kʼicheʼ migrated to Sacatepéquez, in the heart of Kaqchikel territory, where they founded the village of Santa María Cauque. Today only older adults retain the Kʼicheʼ base to their speech: for younger speakers, the language has merged into Kaqchikel.