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33-963: The Acala Chʼol were a former Chʼol -speaking Maya people who occupied a territory to the west of the Manche Chʼol and east of the Chixoy River in what is now the Alta Verapaz Department of Guatemala . The Acala should not be confused with the people of the former Maya territory of Acalan , near the Laguna de Terminos in Mexico . By the 17th century the Acala had two principal towns; Cagbalam had 300 multiple-family houses and Culhuacan had over 140. The towns were divided into four sections, each governed by their own ruler. The combined population of these two towns has been estimated at 7,000. The Acala were allies of

66-489: A glottal stop as the onset. Although complex onsets and complex codas exist, the former only occur across morpheme boundaries, and the latter are limited to j C. The main stress of a word typically falls on the ultima in Chʼol. This is true for most of the bisyllabic native words and polysyllabic loanwords . In the following examples, the stress is indicated by an acute accent on the nucleus . Compound words also have

99-540: A living " Rosetta Stone " of Mayan languages. Chʼortiʼ is an important tool for interpreting the contents of Maya glyphic writings, some of which are not yet fully understood. For several years, many linguists and anthropologists expected to grasp the Chʼortiʼ culture and language by studying its words and expressions. Chʼortiʼ is spoken mainly in and around Jocotán and Camotán , Chiquimula department, Guatemala , as well as in adjacent areas of parts of western Honduras near

132-435: A mean of deriving numeral classifiers. First, some transitive roots reduce valence by infixing -j- into the root. This process is accompanied by a reduction of the number of core arguments from two to one, and the remaining argument referring to the patient is the subject of the verb. For the other use of infixation, the derivations come mostly from positionals and verbs. There are many suffixes in Chʼol since suffixation

165-519: A tripartite pronominal system which comes with different morphemes used for the subject of transitive verbs, the object of transitive verbs and the subject of intransitive completive verbs, and a third set of pronouns only used for the subject of incompletive intransitive verbs. Chʼortiʼ tripartite pronominal system (data from Hull 2005) e def sitzʼ boy u-buyi-Ø A - 3 -chop- B - 3 e def siʼ wood e sitzʼ u-buyi-Ø e siʼ def boy A-3-chop-B-3 def wood 'The boy chops

198-594: 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 (which was actively used and most popular between the years of A.D 250 and 850). Chʼortiʼ can be called

231-459: Is no consensus around the topic. There are 21 consonantal segments in Chʼol. Below is the consonant inventory of Chʼol. Corresponding orthography is presented in the angle brackets next to the IPA symbols . For the segments in the palatal column, [ tʲ , tʲʼ ] are palatalized alveolar consonants , and [ tʃ , tʃʼ ] are palato-alveolar affricates . Another property of the consonant inventory

264-428: Is not always grammatical: factors including animacy, definiteness, topicalization and focus contribute to determining which word order is appropriate. A Ch'ol simple transitive phrase is comprised minimally of a single transitive verb in the form of [ASP Set A + Verb + Set B]. In the case of non-agentive intransitive verbs, the cross-reference of the single argument is accomplished with either Set A or Set B depending on

297-470: Is one of the three modern descendants of the Chʼolan language, which constitute a sub-group of Mayan languages . The other two are Chontal and Chʼol . These three descendants are still spoken today. Chʼortiʼ and Chʼolti are two sub-branches belonging to Eastern Chʼolan; Chʼolti is, however, already extinct. There are some debates among scholars about how Chʼolan should be classified. John Robertson considered

330-471: Is that only the labial has a voiced segment [b], which corresponds to the voiced bilabial implosive [ɓ] in Proto-Mayan . Alveolar sounds [ n , t ] are only heard as allophones of / ɲ , ts /. Chʼol has a six vowel system, as shown below in the vowel inventory. The vowel ä is a distinctive segment in Chʼol, as in other Chʼolan languages . According to Kaufman and Norman (1984), long vowels in

363-446: Is the main way of derivation and inflection. For instance, the suffix -añ on nouns can derive intransitive verbs . The suffix -is causativizes some intransitive verbs. The suffix -b derives ditransitive verbs, and -ty derives some intransitive verbs by passivization of the corresponding transitive verb. Like almost all other Mayan languages, Ch'ol has two sets of person markers: ergative and absolutive . The Mayan tradition

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396-462: Is to label the former as Set A and the latter as Set B. Chʼol is a split ergative language: its morphosyntactic alignment varies according to aspect. With perfective aspect, ergative-absolutive alignment is used, whereas with imperfective aspect, we rather observe nominative-accusative. Set A markers are generally considered as suffixes; however, Martínez Cruz (2007) and Arcos López (2009) categorized them as proclitics . These markers usually denote

429-707: The Chontal Maya language of Tabasco are believed to be the modern languages that best reflect their relationship with the Classic Maya language . Ch'ol-language programming is carried by the CDI 's radio station XEXPUJ-AM , broadcasting from Xpujil , Campeche . There are two main dialects of Chʼol: Chʼol writers have agreed upon the following alphabet, based on the Latin alphabet , proposed and developed by Diaz Peñate in 1992. The absence of glyphic material in Guatemala points that

462-519: The Copán Ruins . Because the Classic Mayan language was ancestral to the modern Chʼorti, it can be used to decipher the ancient language. Researchers realized that the ancient language was based more on phonetics than previously thought. The name Chʼortiʼ (with unglottalized <ch>) means 'language of the corn farmers', a reference to the traditional agricultural activity of Chʼortiʼ families. It

495-565: The Lakandon Chʼol , their immediate neighbours to the west, and the two peoples sometimes cooperated militarily. The Acala are known to have cultivated cacao and achiote . In 1555 the Spanish carried out a military expedition against the Acala in retaliation for their killing of Dominican friar Domingo de Vico and his companion Andrés López. The Spanish and their Christianised Qʼeqchiʼ Maya allies captured 260 Acalas, and hanged 80 of these;

528-525: The Proto-Mayan language merged with their short counterparts in Chʼolan languages , except for *aa (long) and *a (short) . These segments went under a sound change, in which *aa became a and *a became ä . Chʼol can have CV, CVC, CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC as possible syllable structures. The most common ones are CV and CVC. Like many other Mayan languages, Chʼol does not allow onsetless syllables, which means words that appear to start with vowel in fact have

561-452: The aspect of the verb. Verbal predicates can have the following aspects: perfective , imperfective , progressive , inceptive , terminative , and potential . Within Chʼol transitive verbs, there exist two primary categories: simple forms and derived forms. The former modifies the primary arguments within the verb by cross-referencing the transitive subject in Set A and the object in Set B. In

594-536: The 1800s, which puts the people (and thus the language) at risk. In 1997, 2 prominent Chʼorti leaders were assassinated. This assassination is just one example of many cases where Chʼorti advocates have been harmed or killed. Every one of these killings reduces the number of Chʼorti speakers. As of right now, there are only 10 remaining native speakers in Honduras. The government of Guatemala has been more supportive of Chʼorti speakers and has promoted programs that encourage

627-1010: The Chʼortiʼ dating back to the early fifteenth century. Warfare as well as disease devastated much of the Chʼortiʼ during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Much of their land was lost to the Guatemalan government in the nineteenth century as well. More recently, 25 percent of the Guatemalan Chʼortiʼ went to the United States during the 1980s to escape political persecution. The Chʼortiʼ have their own standard way of writing their language. However, inaccurate ways to represent phonemes led to some variation among recent publications. The consonants of Chʼortiʼ include glottal stop [ʼ], b, bʼ, ch, chʼ, d, g, j, k, kʼ, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, tʼ, tz, tzʼ, w, x, y. The ⟨w⟩ and ⟨y⟩ are semivowels. The vowels consist of a, e, i, o, and u. When two vowels are put together in Chʼortiʼ

660-590: The agents of transitive verbs. Note that all markers have phonologically conditioned allomorphs: 1st singular marker changes from k to j when it precedes another k, and 2nd singular and 3rd singular markers have glides inserted when they precede consonants. Set B markers are suffixes. These markers usually denote the patients of transitive verbs or the core arguments of intransitive verbs. There are three plural markers for plural case marking in Ch'ol – two clitics and one suffix. The two clitics can be attached either before

693-590: The calendar was a creation of the lowland Maya. Ch'ol has been considered one of the closer languages to several Mayan glyphs inscriptions. Lounsbury suggested that the ancient Palenqueños spoke a Proto-cholean language. A certain Palenque ruler has the glyph of a Quetzal head for his name and because the word for Quetzal in Chol is kuk , it is conjectured that his name was Lord Kuk . The affix Landa 's I that occurs only with posterior date indicators retains resemblance with

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726-559: The direct ancestor of colonial Chʼoltiʼ to be the language of the Mayan script (also known as Mayan Glyphs). The language of the Mayan Glyphs is described as 'Classic Chʼoltiʼan' by John Robertson, David Stuart, and Stephen Houston. The language of the Mayan script is thus the ancestor of Chʼortiʼ. The relationship is shown in the chart below. [REDACTED] The Chʼortiʼ people are descendants of

759-514: The idea of past time of Ch'ol, such in hobix 'five days hence,' hobixi 'five days ago.' As vocabularies of Ch'ol, Chontal , Chorti, and Tzotzil are far from complete, it is not possible to establish some cognates between these languages and Mayan glyphs . An alternative hypothesis developed by Houston, Robertson, and Stuart proposed that Classic Maya inscriptions between A.D. 250 and 850 convey to Eastern Ch'olan languages , more related to Chorti language than Ch'ol language. However, there

792-691: The learning and teaching of Chʼorti. The Chʼorti's in Guatemala wear traditional clothing, unlike their counterparts in Honduras, who wear modern-day clothing. Currently there are about 55,250 Chʼorti speakers in Guatemala. Even though Guatemala has established Spanish as its official language, it supports the teaching of these native languages. The majority of Chʼortiʼ live in the Chiquimula Department of Guatemala, approximately 52,000. The remaining 4,000 live in Copán, Honduras. The Kʼicheʼ Maya however, dominated

825-404: The main stress on the ultima. A secondary stress, indicated by a grave accent , can be heard in the first part of a compound word. This weak stress usually goes on the ultima of the first part. Affixation is the main way of word formation in Chʼol. There are prefixes , infixes and suffixes . Suffixes are considerably more abundant than the other two. There are two derivational prefixes –

858-426: The noun class markers aj- and x-. The former can go with proper names, nominalize verbs, and be prefixed to some terms that refer to animals. The latter can also go with proper names and with the name of some animals, but additionally it can be prefixed to the name of some trees and plants. In addition, Set A inflections are prefixed to nouns (10a) and verbs (10b). Infixation is used for passivization and as

891-410: The people who lived in and around Copán , one of the cultural capitals of the ancient Maya area. This covers parts of modern-day Honduras and Guatemala. Chʼorti is considered an endangered language as well as an endangered culture. This region is the only region in the world that Chʼorti speakers can be found. Although the area is completely shaded in, the majority of speakers reside in Guatemala, while

924-731: The perfective aspect, this category incorporates a status suffix, which is a vowel in harmony with the root vowel. Conversely, the imperfective aspect does not take such status suffix. To form derived transitive verbs, the suffix -V or -Vñ is appended, based on the aspect. Unlike the simple forms, the suffix does not need to be in harmony with the root vowel. The direct arguments in this category are identified via Set A and Set B inflections. This construction does not take aspect markers, in contrast to verbal predicates. It can be headed by nouns, adjectives, positionals, etc. The core argument only takes Set B markers. Ch%CA%BCorti%CA%BC language The Chʼortiʼ language (sometimes also Chorti )

957-476: The rest are sparsely distributed throughout the rest of the area. The government of Honduras has been trying to promote a uniform national language of Spanish, and therefore discourages the use and teaching of native languages such as Chʼorti. The Chʼortiʼ people in Honduras face homogenization and have to assimilate to their surroundings. The government has been clashing with the Chʼorti people over land disputes from

990-665: The rest were sold as slaves. Many Acala were rounded up by the Qʼeqchʼi and forcibly moved to settle the San Marcos and San Juan Acala districts of Cobán , capital of colonial Verapaz. Acala from the Chama region were settled in the San Marcos district; the San Juan Acala district received the former inhabitants of the Chisec region. By 1720 the Acala had been completely extinguished, such that there

1023-522: The second vowel always takes precedence and then is always followed by a glottal stop. Chʼortiʼ doesn't have any long vowels. According to historians, long vowels occur in Classical Mayan, but have been lost in modern Chʼortiʼ. In Chʼortiʼ language, aa or a꞉ is used as aʼ or Aʼ, we can see this pattern with all vowel clusters including eʼ, Iʼ, oʼ and uʼ. Some examples of words with vowel clusters are꞉ The aspectual system of Chʼortiʼ language changed to

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1056-403: The singular person markers or after the verbal roots. The exclusive 1st plural marker has a shorter form loñ and a longer form lojoñ. Both are used interchangeably, except when it is attached before a singular marker, in which case only the shorter form is allowed. The plural suffix -ob is often realized as -o' in speech. The basic word order is VOS . However, word order varies and VOS

1089-694: Was not even memory of them. Some of the Lakandon and Acala Chʼols fled their forcible resettlement in Cobán and returned to former Acala territory along the course of the Xoy River , where they became known as the Ah Xoy. Ch%CA%BCol language The Cholan branch of the Mayan languages is considered to be particularly conservative and Ch'ol along with its two closest relatives the Ch'orti' language of Guatemala and Honduras , and

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