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124-480: Chan Hol is derived from Mayan , meaning "little hole". The Chan Hol cave system extends over 5,000 m (16,404 ft) in length. The entrance, via the cenote, is located around 15 km (9 mi) away from Tulum and around 11.5 km (7 mi) from the modern coastline. As the sea level was over 100 m (328 ft) lower than it is today, the cave system was dry during the Late Pleistocene . During

248-583: A talud - tablero style of architecture that is associated with Nahua culture and corresponds with their migration history from Anahuac. In eastern El Salvador, the Lenca site of Quelepa is highlighted as a major pre-Columbian cultural center and demonstrates links to the Mayan site of Copan in western Honduras as well as the previously mentioned sites in Chalchuapa, and Cara Sucia in western El Salvador. An investigation of

372-519: A Maya-Lenca crown princess, Antu Silan Ulap I, organized resistance to the conquistadors. The commonwealth of the Lenca was alarmed by de Moscoso's invasion, and Antu Silan travelled from village to village, uniting all the Lenca towns in present-day El Salvador and Honduras against the Spaniards. Through surprise attacks and overwhelming numbers, they were able to drive the Spanish out of San Miguel and destroy

496-626: A Western Chʼolan variety diffused from the Usumacinta region from the mid-7th century on, and a Yucatecan variety found in the texts from the Yucatán Peninsula. The reason why only few linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialects throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite. Stephen Houston, John Robertson and David Stuart have suggested that

620-493: A few families. Throughout the last half of the 19th century, a succession of presidents from the ranks of the Salvadoran oligarchy, nominally both conservative and liberal, generally agreed on the promotion of coffee as the predominant cash crop , the development of infrastructure (railroads and port facilities) primarily in support of the coffee trade, the elimination of communal landholdings to facilitate further coffee production,

744-578: A few villages on the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona , in Chiapas . Wastek (also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec) is spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz and San Luis Potosí by around 110,000 people. It is the most divergent of modern Mayan languages. Chicomuceltec was a language related to Wastek and spoken in Chiapas that became extinct some time before 1982. Proto-Mayan (the common ancestor of

868-520: A result of the Napoleonic Wars , with the resulting inability to control its colonies effectively. In November 1811 Salvadoran priest José Matías Delgado rang the bells of Iglesia La Merced in San Salvador, calling for insurrection and launching the 1811 Independence Movement . This insurrection was suppressed, and many of its leaders were arrested and served sentences in jail. Another insurrection

992-592: A shadowy figure, a rich anti-communist banker called Rodolfo Duke, and later installed the vice-president Martínez as president. The revolt was probably caused by the army's discontent at not having been paid by President Araujo for some months. Araujo left the National Palace and unsuccessfully tried to organize forces to defeat the revolt. The U.S. Minister in El Salvador met with the Directorate and later recognized

1116-474: A sovereign state, then formed a short-lived union with Honduras and Nicaragua called the Greater Republic of Central America , which lasted from 1896 to 1898. From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, El Salvador endured chronic political and economic instability characterized by coups, revolts, and a succession of authoritarian rulers. Persistent socioeconomic inequality and civil unrest culminated in

1240-464: A strategy of self-representation for the Maya movements and its followers. The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) finds twenty-one distinct Mayan languages." This pride in unity has led to an insistence on the distinctions of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. But, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in

1364-600: A union named the Federal Republic of Central America . In early 1822, the authorities of the newly independent Central American provinces, meeting in Guatemala City, voted to join the newly constituted First Mexican Empire under Agustín de Iturbide . El Salvador resisted, insisting on autonomy for the Central American countries. A Mexican military detachment marched to San Salvador and suppressed dissent, but with

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1488-576: A vest-like armour made of three inch cotton which arrows could not penetrate, and long spears. Both armies suffered many casualties, with a wounded Alvarado retreating and losing a lot of his men, especially among the Mexican Indian auxiliaries. Once his army had regrouped, Alvarado decided to head to the Cuzcatlan capital and again faced armed Cuzcatlec. Wounded, unable to fight and hiding in the cliffs, Alvarado sent his Spanish men on their horses to approach

1612-618: A volcanic eruption, after which it never regained its former prominence. Another major Pre-Columbian settlement is Cara Sucia in the far west of the country, which began as a small settlement around 800 BC at the beginning of the Middle Preclassic, during the Late Classic (600-900 AD), Cara Sucia emerged as a major urban settlement, before being abruptly destroyed during the 10th century. The Pipil people , Nahua speaking groups migrated from Anahuac beginning around 800 AD and occupied

1736-408: Is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Maya identify first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "Kʼicheʼ"; but they also recognize a shared Maya kinship. Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. Fabri writes: "The term Maya is problematic because Maya peoples do not constitute a homogeneous identity. Maya, rather, has become

1860-479: Is based on changes shared between groups of languages. For example, languages of the western group (such as Huastecan, Yucatecan and Chʼolan) all changed the Proto-Mayan phoneme * /r/ into [j] , some languages of the eastern branch retained [r] (Kʼichean), and others changed it into [tʃ] or, word-finally, [t] (Mamean). The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Chʼolan show that they separated from

1984-459: Is now Salvadoran territory was made by the admiral Andrés Niño , who led an expedition to Central America. He disembarked in the Gulf of Fonseca on 31 May 1522, at Meanguera island , naming it Petronila, and then traversed to Jiquilisco Bay on the mouth of Lempa River . The first indigenous people to have contact with the Spanish were the Lenca of eastern El Salvador. In 1524, after participating in

2108-613: Is one of the best-documented and most studied in the Americas . Modern Mayan languages descend from the Proto-Mayan language , thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed using the comparative method . The proto-Mayan language diversified into at least six different branches: the Huastecan , Quichean , Yucatecan , Qanjobalan , Mamean and Chʼolan–Tzeltalan branches. Mayan languages form part of

2232-612: Is reflected as [x] in the eastern branches (Quichean–Mamean), [n] in Qʼanjobalan, Chʼolan and Yucatecan, [h] in Huastecan, and only conserved as [ŋ] in Chuj and Jakaltek. Vowel quality is typically classified as having monophthongal vowels. In traditionally diphthongized contexts, Mayan languages will realize the V-V sequence by inserting a hiatus-breaking glottal stop or glide insertion between

2356-594: Is rejected by most historical linguists as unsupported by available evidence. Writing in 1997, Lyle Campbell , an expert in Mayan languages and historical linguistics, argued that the most promising proposal is the " Macro-Mayan " hypothesis, which posits links between Mayan, the Mixe–Zoque languages and the Totonacan languages , but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis. In 2015, Campbell noted that recent evidence presented by David Mora-Marin makes

2480-458: Is speculative, but given the traumas and the pathological deformations on her skull, it appears a likely scenario that she may have been expelled from her group and was killed in the cave, or was left in the cave to die there”. The newly discovered skeleton was 140 m (460 ft) away from the Chan Hol 2 site. Although archaeologists assumed the divers found the remains of the missing Chan Hol 2,

2604-562: Is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations. The Uspantek language , which also springs directly from the Quichean–Mamean node, is native only to the Uspantán municipio in the department of El Quiché , and has 3,000 speakers. Within the Quichean sub-branch Kʼicheʼ (Quiché) , the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 Kʼicheʼ Maya in

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2728-825: Is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango department, with small populations elsewhere. The region of Qʼanjobalan speakers in Guatemala, due to genocidal policies during the Civil War and its close proximity to the Mexican border , was the source of a number of refugees. Thus there are now small Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek, and Akatek populations in various locations in Mexico, the United States (such as Tuscarawas County, Ohio and Los Angeles, California ), and, through postwar resettlement, other parts of Guatemala. Jakaltek (also known as Poptiʼ )

2852-576: Is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area stretching from Guatemala City westward to the northern shore of Lake Atitlán . Tzʼutujil has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. Other members of the Kʼichean branch are Sakapultek , spoken by about 15,000 people mostly in El Quiché department, and Sipakapense , which is spoken by 8,000 people in Sipacapa , San Marcos . The largest language in

2976-546: Is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalities of Huehuetenango . Another member of this branch is Akatek , with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia . Chuj is spoken by 40,000 people in Huehuetenango, and by 9,500 people, primarily refugees, over the border in Mexico, in the municipality of La Trinitaria , Chiapas , and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Tojolabʼal

3100-926: Is spoken by around 49,000 people in several small pockets in Guatemala . Yucatec Maya (known simply as "Maya" to its speakers) is the most commonly spoken Mayan language in Mexico . It is currently spoken by approximately 800,000 people, the vast majority of whom are to be found on the Yucatán Peninsula . It remains common in Yucatán and in the adjacent states of Quintana Roo and Campeche . The other three Yucatecan languages are Mopan , spoken by around 10,000 speakers primarily in Belize ; Itzaʼ , an extinct or moribund language from Guatemala's Petén Basin; and Lacandón or Lakantum, also severely endangered with about 1,000 speakers in

3224-552: Is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people. The Quichean–Mamean languages and dialects, with two sub-branches and three subfamilies, are spoken in the Guatemalan highlands . Qʼeqchiʼ (sometimes spelled Kekchi), which constitutes its own sub-branch within Quichean–Mamean, is spoken by about 800,000 people in the southern Petén , Izabal and Alta Verapaz departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. In El Salvador it

3348-526: Is spoken today. The earliest proposal which identified the Chiapas-Guatemalan highlands as the likely "cradle" of Mayan languages was published by the German antiquarian and scholar Karl Sapper in 1912. Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson have reconstructed more than 3000 lexical items for the proto-Mayan language. According to the prevailing classification scheme by Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman,

3472-406: Is the position of Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean. Some scholars think these form a separate Western branch (as in the diagram below). Other linguists do not support the positing of an especially close relationship between Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean; consequently they classify these as two distinct branches emanating directly from the proto-language. An alternative proposed classification groups

3596-411: The Greater Republic of Central America , which dissolved in 1898. After the mid-19th century, the economy was based on coffee growing. As the world market for indigo withered away, the economy prospered or suffered as the world coffee price fluctuated. The enormous profits that coffee yielded as a monoculture export served as an impetus for the concentration of land into the hands of an oligarchy of just

3720-515: The Guatemalan highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango and in the Cuchumatán mountains , as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City . The famous Maya mythological document, Popol Vuh , is written in an antiquated Kʼicheʼ often called Classical Kʼicheʼ (or Quiché) . The Kʼicheʼ culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. Qʼumarkaj , near

3844-696: The Lencan and Xinca people , possibly during the Classic period (250–900). During the Classic period the major branches began diversifying into separate languages. The split between Proto-Yucatecan (in the north, that is, the Yucatán Peninsula) and Proto-Chʼolan (in the south, that is, the Chiapas highlands and Petén Basin ) had already occurred by the Classic period, when most extant Maya inscriptions were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at

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3968-449: The Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as " Classic Maya language ". Although a single prestige language was by far the most frequently recorded on extant hieroglyphic texts, evidence for at least three different varieties of Mayan have been discovered within the hieroglyphic corpus—an Eastern Chʼolan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands,

4092-511: The Mesoamerican language area , an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational nouns instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. They also possess grammatical and typological features that set them apart from other languages of Mesoamerica, such as

4216-533: The Preclassic Period and earlier. A notable archaeological site in western El Salvador is Chalchuapa , which was first settled around 1200 BC, and became a major urban settlement on the periphery of the Maya civilization during the Preclassic Period and was heavily involved in the trading of valuable items like ceramics, obsidian, cacao and hematite. The settlement was heavily damaged around 430 AD by

4340-569: The Republic of El Salvador , is a country in Central America . It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras , on the northwest by Guatemala , and on the south by the Pacific Ocean . El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador . The country's population in 2024 was estimated to be 6 million according to a government census. Among the Mesoamerican nations that historically controlled

4464-602: The Salvadoran Civil War from 1979 to 1992, fought between the military-led government backed by the United States , and a coalition of left-wing guerrilla groups. The conflict ended with the Chapultepec Peace Accords . This negotiated settlement established a multiparty constitutional republic, which remains in place to this day. During the civil war and afterwards, large numbers of Salvadorans emigrated to

4588-551: The conquest of the Aztec Empire , Pedro de Alvarado , his brother Gonzalo, and their men crossed the Rio Paz southward into Cuzcatlec territory. Upon their arrival, Spaniards were disappointed to discover that the Pipil had little gold compared to what they had found in Guatemala or Mexico. The small amount of gold that was available had to be panned so that it could be obtained. Eventually,

4712-601: The election . He was sworn in as president on 31 May 2014. He was the first former guerrilla to become the president of El Salvador. In October 2017, an El Salvador court ruled that former president Funes and one of his sons had illegally enriched themselves. Funes had sought asylum in Nicaragua in 2016. In September 2018, former president Saca was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to diverting more than US$ 300 million in state funds to his own businesses and third parties. On 1 June 2019, Nayib Bukele became

4836-549: The glyptodont Glyptotherium , the llama Hemiauchenia , and the horse Equus conversidens . El Salvador has likely been occupied by humans since the Paleoindian period, based on fluted stone points found in western El Salvador. Archaeological knowledge of Pre-Columbian civilisation in El Salvador is poor, due to its high population density limiting excavation, as well as volcanic eruptions blanketing potential archaeological sites. This lack of knowledge particularly effects

4960-557: The 20th century and nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies spread, the Mayan-speaking peoples began to develop a shared ethnic identity as Maya, the heirs of the Maya civilization . The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan ; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships,

5084-521: The Belizean speaker population figures around 30,000. The Chʼolan languages were formerly widespread throughout the Maya area, but today the language with most speakers is Chʼol , spoken by 130,000 in Chiapas. Its closest relative, the Chontal Maya language , is spoken by 55,000 in the state of Tabasco . Another related language, now endangered, is Chʼortiʼ , which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala. It

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5208-781: The Central Lowlands. They may have served as prestige languages, coexisting with other dialects in some areas. This assumption provides a plausible explanation for the geographical distance between the Chʼortiʼ zone and the areas where Chʼol and Chontal are spoken. The closest relatives of the Chʼolan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch, Tzotzil and Tzeltal , both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal ). Tzeltal has tens of thousands of monolingual speakers. Qʼanjobʼal

5332-626: The Chʼolan group and moved south into the Chiapas Highlands , they came into contact with speakers of Mixe–Zoque languages . According to an alternative theory by Robertson and Houston , Huastecan stayed in the Guatemalan highlands with speakers of Chʼolan–Tzeltalan, separating from that branch at a much later date than proposed by Kaufman. In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanwords from Mixe–Zoquean languages seem to have entered

5456-569: The Chʼoltiʼan languages are retentions rather than innovations, and that the diversification of Chʼolan in fact post-dates the classic period. The language of the classical lowland inscriptions then would have been proto-Chʼolan. During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous languages were eclipsed by Spanish , which became the new prestige language. The use of Mayan languages came to an end in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature. Yet

5580-761: The Cuzcatlec to see if they would fear the horses, but they did not retreat, Alvarado recalls in his letters to Hernán Cortés . The Cuzcatlec attacked again, and on this occasion stole Spanish weaponry. Alvarado retreated and sent Mexican messengers to demand that the Cuzcatlec warriors return the stolen weapons and surrender to their opponent's king. The Cuzcatlec responded with the famous response, "If you want your weapons, come get them". As days passed, Alvarado, fearing an ambush, sent more Mexican messengers to negotiate, but these messengers never came back and were presumably executed. The Spanish efforts were firmly resisted by Pipil and their Mayan-speaking neighbours. They defeated

5704-496: The Huastecan branch as springing from the Chʼolan–Tzeltalan node, rather than as an outlying branch springing directly from the proto-Mayan node. Studies estimate that Mayan languages are spoken by more than six million people. Most of them live in Guatemala where depending on estimates 40%–60% of the population speaks a Mayan language. In Mexico the Mayan speaking population was estimated at 2.5 million people in 2010, whereas

5828-537: The Late Pleistocene, the Yucatán region was likely composed of dry savanna , grassland and even desert. The skeletons of first two ancient Paleo-Indians were discovered within the Chan Hol cave system. Both skeletons exhibit sinodont dental morphology. The first fossil, Chan Hol I , was discovered in 2006 by Alexandra and Thorsten Kampe at a location in the cave system around 530 m (1,739 ft) northeast of

5952-455: The Mamean sub-branch is Mam , spoken by 478,000 people in the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango. Awakatek is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán , another municipality of Huehuetenango. Ixil (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the " Ixil Triangle " region of the department of El Quiché . Tektitek (or Teko) is spoken by over 6,000 people in

6076-468: The Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language. While a number of Mayan languages are moribund or are considered endangered , others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society. As Maya archaeology advanced during

6200-520: The Mayan family to other language families or isolates , but none is generally supported by linguists. Examples include linking Mayan with the Uru–Chipaya languages , Mapuche , the Lencan languages, Purépecha , and Huave . Mayan has also been included in various Hokan , Penutian , and Siouan hypotheses. The linguist Joseph Greenberg included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis , which

6324-446: The Mayan languages as reconstructed using the comparative method ) has a predominant CVC syllable structure, only allowing consonant clusters across syllable boundaries. Most Proto-Mayan roots were monosyllabic except for a few disyllabic nominal roots. Due to subsequent vowel loss, many Mayan languages now show complex consonant clusters at both ends of syllables. Following the reconstruction of Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman ,

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6448-406: The Proto-Mayan language had the following sounds. It has been suggested that proto-Mayan was a tonal language , based on the fact that four different contemporary Mayan languages have tone (Yucatec, Uspantek, San Bartolo Tzotzil and Mochoʼ), but since these languages each can be shown to have innovated tone in different ways, Campbell considers this unlikely. The classification of Mayan languages

6572-563: The Salvadoran left had formed the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front , or FMLN. By the end of the 1970s, government-contracted death squads were killing about 10 people each day. Meanwhile, the FMLN had 6,000 to 8,000 active guerrillas and hundreds of thousands of part-time militia, supporters, and sympathizers. The U.S. supported and financed the creation of a second junta to change the political environment and stop

6696-424: The Spaniards and what was left of their Tlaxcalan allies, forcing them to withdraw to Guatemala. After being wounded, Alvarado abandoned the war and appointed his brother, Gonzalo de Alvarado , to continue the task. Two subsequent expeditions (the first in 1525, followed by a smaller group in 1528) brought the Pipil under Spanish control, since the Pipil also were weakened by a regional epidemic of smallpox. In 1525,

6820-401: The Spaniards recognized the richness of the land's volcanic soil. Following this discovery, the Spanish crown began granting land based on the terms of the encomienda system. Pedro Alvarado led the first incursion to extend their dominion to the domain of Cuzcatlan in June 1524. When he arrived at the borders of the kingdom, he saw that civilians had been evacuated. Cuzcatlec warriors moved to

6944-426: The Spanish Crown. The most important internal factors were the desire of local elites to control the country's affairs free of involvement from Spanish authorities, and the long-standing Creole aspiration for independence. The main external factors motivating the independence movement were the success of the French and American revolutions in the 18th century, and the weakening of the Spanish Crown's military power as

7068-399: The United Nations ending the 12-year civil war. This event, held at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico, was attended by U.N. dignitaries and other representatives of the international community. After signing the armistice, the president stood and shook hands with the newly ex-guerrilla commanders, an action which was widely admired. The so-called Chapultepec Peace Accords mandated reductions in

7192-409: The United States. From 1980 through 2008, nearly one million Salvadorans immigrated to the United States, such that by 2008, they were the sixth largest immigrant group in the US. El Salvador's economy has historically been dominated by agriculture, beginning with the Spanish taking control of the indigenous cacao crop in the 16th century, with production centred in Izalco , along with balsam from

7316-402: The analysis proved that these assumptions were erroneous in a short time. Stinnesbeck compared the new bones to old photographs of Chan Hol 2 and showed that the two skeletons represent different individuals. Due to their distinctive features, study co-researcher  Samuel Rennie suggest the existence of at least two morphologically diverse groups of people living separately in Mexico during

7440-507: The case for a relationship between Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean languages "much more plausible". The Mayan family consists of thirty languages. Typically, these languages are grouped into 5–6 major subgroups (Yucatecan, Huastecan, Chʼolan–Tzeltalan, Qʼanjobʼalan, Mamean, and Kʼichean). The Mayan language family is extremely well documented, and its internal genealogical classification scheme is widely accepted and established, except for some minor unresolved differences. One point still at issue

7564-441: The case of transitive verbs ), and for plurality of person. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. In Mayan languages, nouns are not marked for case, and gender is not explicitly marked. Proto-Mayan is thought to have had a basic verb–object–subject word order with possibilities of switching to VSO in certain circumstances, such as complex sentences, sentences where object and subject were of equal animacy and when

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7688-434: The cenote entrance, at a depth of around 8 m (26 ft) underwater. Nicknamed El Joven , the fossil is dated to around 9194-8792 BP . The skeleton had fossilized while the cave system was still dry. The skeleton shows evidence of intentional placement of the dead body. The second fossil, Chan Hol II , was discovered in 2009 by Harry Gust at a location in the cave system around 1,240 m (4,068 ft) southwest of

7812-442: The cenote entrance, at a depth of around 8.5 m (28 ft) underwater. In February 2012, photos of the skeleton spread on social media . In March 2012, the site was vandalized and looted. Most of the skeletal remains, including the skull, were stolen. In October 2012, researchers collected the leftover fossil fragments from the site. Although Chan Hol II was given the nickname La Niña , later osteological analysis shows that

7936-449: The cenote entrance. Nicknamed Ixchel after the Maya goddess of fertility. The fossil is a 30-year-old woman who lived around 10000 years ago. The skull shows evidence of various traumas and possibly signs of a disease that may have driven her tribe to kill her. According to craniometric measurements, the skull is believed to conform to the mesocephalic pattern, like the other three skulls found in Tulum caves. Three different scars on

8060-462: The central and western regions of El Salvador. The Nahua Pipil were the last indigenous people to arrive in El Salvador. They called their territory Kuskatan , a Nawat word meaning "The Place of Precious Jewels," back-formed into Classical Nahuatl Cōzcatlān , and as Cuzcatlán . It was the largest domain in Salvadoran territory up until European contact. The term Cuzcatleco is commonly used to identify someone of Salvadoran heritage, although

8184-421: The coastal city of Acajutla and waited for Alvarado and his forces. Alvarado approached, confident that the result would be similar to what occurred in Mexico and Guatemala. He thought he would easily deal with this new indigenous force since the Mexican allies on his side and the Pipil spoke a similar language. Alvarado described the Cuzcatlec soldiers as having shields decorated with colourful exotic feathers,

8308-500: The colonial period, San Salvador and San Miguel were part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala ( Spanish : Reino de Guatemala ), created in 1609 as an administrative division of New Spain . The Salvadoran territory was administered by the mayor of Sonsonate, with San Salvador being established as an intendencia in 1786. In 1811, a combination of internal and external factors motivated Central American elites to attempt to gain independence from

8432-439: The conquest of Cuzcatlán was completed and the city of San Salvador was established. The Spanish faced much resistance from the Pipil and were not able to reach eastern El Salvador, the area of the Lencas. In 1526 the Spanish founded the garrison town of San Miguel in northern Managuara—territory of the Lenca, headed by another explorer and conquistador, Luis de Moscoso Alvarado , nephew of Pedro Alvarado. Oral history holds that

8556-412: The country in 1979 to enter politics after working on projects in Venezuela as an engineer. On 15 October 1979, a coup d'état brought the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) to power. It nationalized many private companies and took over much privately owned land. The purpose of this new junta was to stop the revolutionary movement already underway in response to Duarte's stolen election. Nevertheless,

8680-443: The daily affairs of the isthmus, which was colonized in 1524. In 1609, the area was declared the Captaincy General of Guatemala by the Spanish, which included the territory that would become El Salvador until its independence from Spain in 1821. It was forcibly incorporated into the First Mexican Empire , then seceded, joining the Federal Republic of Central America in 1823. When the federation dissolved in 1841, El Salvador became

8804-435: The definite form "El Salvador", The Savior, again a reference to Jesus, rather than Salvador. The legislature reaffirmed the country's name as El Salvador with another law passed in 1958. During the Pleistocene El Salvador was inhabited by now extinct megafauna species, including the elephant-sized giant ground sloth Eremotherium , the rhinoceros-like Mixotoxodon , the gomphothere (elephant-relative) Cuvieronius ,

8928-644: The early 1990s brought major benefits in terms of improved social conditions, diversification of the export sector, and access to international financial markets at investment grade level. Crime remains a major problem for the investment climate. Early in the new millennium, El Salvador's government created the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales — the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) — in response to climate change concerns. In March 2014, former FMLN guerrilla leader Cerén narrowly won

9052-559: The fall of Iturbide on 19 March 1823, the army decamped back to Mexico. Shortly thereafter, the authorities of the provinces revoked the vote to join Mexico, deciding instead to form a federal union of the five remaining provinces (Chiapas permanently joined Mexico at this juncture) known as the Federal Republic of Central America . El Salvador declared its independence from the Federal Republic of Central America on 30 January 1841. El Salvador joined Honduras and Nicaragua in 1896 to form

9176-499: The first division occurred around 2200 BCE, when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast of Mexico . Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Chʼolan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula . Speakers of the western branch moved south into the areas now inhabited by Mamean and Quichean people. When speakers of proto-Tzeltalan later separated from

9300-413: The form of affixes attached to the numeral; in others such as Tzeltal, they are free forms. Jakaltek has both numeral classifiers and noun classifiers, and the noun classifiers can also be used as pronouns. The meaning denoted by a noun may be altered significantly by changing the accompanying classifier. In Chontal, for example, when the classifier -tek is used with names of plants it is understood that

9424-469: The garrison. For ten years the Lencas prevented the Spanish from building a permanent settlement. Then the Spanish returned with more soldiers, including about 2,000 forced conscripts from indigenous communities in Guatemala. They pursued the Lenca leaders further up into the mountains of Intibucá . Antu Silan Ulap eventually handed over control of the Lenca resistance to Lempira (also called Empira). Lempira

9548-593: The government of Martínez, which agreed to hold presidential elections. He resigned six months prior to running for re-election, winning back the presidency as the only candidate on the ballot. He ruled from 1935 to 1939, then from 1939 to 1943. He began a fourth term in 1944 but resigned in May after a general strike. Martínez had said he was going to respect the constitution, which stipulated he could not be re-elected, but he refused to keep his promise. Beginning in January 1932, there

9672-405: The land was divided into the province of San Salvador, which means "Holy Savior"; a Spanish title for Jesus . From 1579 that also including the province of San Miguel (Saint Michael). San Salvador would become, throughout the colonial era, an alcaldía mayor (great mayor's office), intendancy, and finally a province with a provincial council, and the province of Izalcos (which would become be called

9796-462: The left-wing party to win presidential elections led to its selection of a journalist rather than a former guerrilla leader as a candidate. On 15 March 2009, Mauricio Funes , a television figure, became the first president from the FMLN. He was inaugurated on 1 June 2009. One focus of the Funes government has been revealing the alleged corruption from the past government. ARENA formally expelled Saca from

9920-504: The majority of the eastern population has an indigenous heritage of Lenca origin, as do their place names such as Intipuca , Chirilagua , and Lolotique . Most of the archaeological sites in western El Salvador such as Lago de Guija and Joya De Ceren indicate a pre-Columbian Mayan culture. Cihuatan shows signs of material trade with northern Nahua culture, eastern Mayan and Lenca culture, and southern Nicaraguan and Costa Rican indigenous culture. Tazumal 's smaller B1-2 structure shows

10044-464: The manufacturing sector. The colón , the currency of El Salvador since 1892, was replaced by the United States dollar in 2001. As of 2019 economic improvements had led to El Salvador experiencing the lowest level of income inequality among nearby countries. Among 77 countries included in a 2021 study, El Salvador had one of the least complex economies for doing business. After the Spanish conquest ,

10168-546: The mayor's office of Sonsonate). In 1824 the two jurisdictions were united in the State of Salvador, a part of the Federal Republic of Central America . After the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Central America, the country was referred to as the "Republic of Salvador" ( República del Salvador ), but in 1915, the Legislative Assembly passed a law which officially stated that the country's name should be rendered as

10292-633: The meantime, the guerrilla movement was spreading to all sectors of Salvadoran society. Middle and high school students were organized in MERS (Movimiento Estudiantil Revolucionario de Secundaria, Revolutionary Movement of Secondary Students); college students were involved with AGEUS (Asociacion de Estudiantes Universitarios Salvadorenos; Association of Salvadoran College Students); and workers were organized in BPR (Bloque Popular Revolucionario, Popular Revolutionary Block). In October 1980, several other major guerrilla groups of

10416-547: The middle class and the latter the interests of the Salvadoran military. PDC leader José Napoleón Duarte was the mayor of San Salvador from 1964 to 1970, winning three elections during the regime of PCN president, Julio Adalberto Rivera Carballo , who allowed free elections for mayors and the National Assembly. Duarte later ran for president with a political grouping called the National Opposing Union (UNO) but

10540-595: The municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing. The Poqom languages are closely related to Core Quichean, with which they constitute a Poqom-Kʼichean sub-branch on the Quichean–Mamean node. Poqomchiʼ is spoken by 90,000 people in Purulhá , Baja Verapaz , and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz : Santa Cruz Verapaz , San Cristóbal Verapaz , Tactic , Tamahú and Tucurú . Poqomam

10664-763: The nature and effects of the violence, and...recommend methods of promoting national reconciliation". In 1993 the Commission delivered its findings reporting human rights violations on both sides of the conflict. Five days later the Salvadoran legislature passed an amnesty law for all acts of violence during the period. From 1989 until 2004, Salvadorans favoured the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), voting in ARENA presidents in every election ( Alfredo Cristiani , Armando Calderón Sol , Francisco Flores Pérez , Antonio Saca ) until 2009. The unsuccessful attempts of

10788-457: The numeral cannot appear without an accompanying classifier. Some Mayan languages, such as Kaqchikel, do not use numeral classifiers. Class is usually assigned according to whether the object is animate or inanimate or according to an object's general shape. Thus when counting "flat" objects, a different form of numeral classifier is used than when counting round things, oblong items or people. In some Mayan languages such as Chontal, classifiers take

10912-407: The objects being enumerated are whole trees. If in this expression a different classifier, -tsʼit (for counting long, slender objects) is substituted for -tek , this conveys the meaning that only sticks or branches of the tree are being counted: un- one- tek "plant" wop jahuacte tree un- tek wop one- "plant" {jahuacte tree} El Salvador El Salvador , officially

11036-492: The oligarchy opposed agrarian reform , and a junta formed with young reformist elements from the army such as Colonels Adolfo Arnoldo Majano and Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez , as well as with progressives such as Guillermo Ungo and Alvarez. Pressure from the oligarchy soon dissolved the junta because of its inability to control the army in its repression of the people fighting for unionization rights, agrarian reform, better wages, accessible health care and freedom of expression. In

11160-670: The other Mayan languages before the changes found in other branches had taken place. The palatalized plosives [tʲʼ] and [tʲ] are not found in most of the modern families. Instead they are reflected differently in different branches, allowing a reconstruction of these phonemes as palatalized plosives. In the eastern branch (Chujean-Qʼanjobalan and Chʼolan) they are reflected as [t] and [tʼ] . In Mamean they are reflected as [ts] and [tsʼ] and in Quichean as [tʃ] and [tʃʼ] . Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into [tʃ] and sometimes [t] . The Proto-Mayan velar nasal * [ŋ]

11284-546: The party in December 2009. With 12 loyalists in the National Assembly, Saca established his own party, the Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA), and entered into a tactical legislative alliance with the FMLN. After three years in office, with Saca's GANA party providing the FMLN with a legislative majority, Funes had not taken action to either investigate or to bring corrupt former officials to justice. Economic reforms since

11408-430: The passage of anti- vagrancy laws to ensure that displaced campesinos and other rural residents provided sufficient labour for the coffee fincas (plantations), and the suppression of rural discontent. In 1912, the national guard was created as a rural police force. In 1898, General Tomas Regalado gained power by force, deposing Rafael Antonio Gutiérrez and ruling as president until 1903. Once in office he revived

11532-572: The past, as scholars made a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in Mesoamerica in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages. In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages), which

11656-497: The practice of presidents designating their successors. After serving his term, he remained active in the Army of El Salvador and was killed on 11 July 1906, at El Jicaro, during a war against Guatemala . Until 1913 El Salvador was politically stable, with undercurrents of popular discontent. When President Manuel Enrique Araujo was killed in 1913, many hypotheses were advanced for the political motive of his murder. Araujo's administration

11780-526: The present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché , was its economic and ceremonial center. Achi is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco and Rabinal , two municipios of Baja Verapaz . In some classifications, e.g. the one by Campbell , Achi is counted as a form of Kʼicheʼ. However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as Kʼicheʼ. The Kaqchikel language

11904-500: The proto-Mayan language. This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec . In the case of the Xincan and Lencan languages , on the other hand, Mayan languages are more often the source than the receiver of loanwords. Mayan language specialists such as Campbell believe this suggests a period of intense contact between Maya and

12028-418: The ranges of La Libertad and Ahuachapán . This was followed by a boom in use of the indigo plant in the 19th century, mainly for its use as a dye. Thereafter the focus shifted to coffee , which by the early 20th century accounted for 90% of export earnings. El Salvador has since reduced its dependence on coffee and embarked on diversifying its economy by opening up trade and financial links and expanding

12152-611: The region are the Mayans , and then the Cuzcatlecs . Archaeological monuments also suggest an early Olmec presence around the first millennium BC. In the beginning of the 16th century, the Spanish Empire conquered the Central American territory, incorporating it into the Viceroyalty of New Spain ruled from Mexico City . However the Viceroyalty of New Spain had little to no influence in

12276-433: The remains likely belonged to a young male. The fossil is dated to around 11,311 BP. The individual had died while the cave system was still dry. The third fossil, Chan Hol III , was discovered in 2016 by divers Iván Hernández and Vicente Fito led by Jerónimo Avilés Olguín. The skeleton was discovered in a low cave tunnel in fresh water at 8 m (26 ft) water depth, at 1,141 m (3,743 ft) diving distance from

12400-704: The rich post-Conquest literature in Mayan languages written in the Latin script , provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history unparalleled in the Americas. Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-language called Proto-Mayan or, in Kʼicheʼ Maya, Nabʼee Mayaʼ Tzij ("the old Maya Language"). The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Qʼanjobalan

12524-626: The site of La Laguna in Usulutan has also produced Copador items that link it to the Lenca-Maya trade route. By 1521, the indigenous population of the Mesoamerican area had been drastically reduced by the smallpox epidemic that was spreading throughout the territory, although it had not yet reached pandemic levels in Cuzcatlán or the northern portion Managuara. The first known visit by Spaniards to what

12648-761: The size of the army, and the dissolution of the National Police, the Treasury Police, the National Guard and the Civilian Defence, a paramilitary group. A new Civil Police was to be organized. Judicial immunity for crimes committed by the armed forces ended; the government agreed to submit to the recommendations of a Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (Comisión de la Verdad Para El Salvador) , which would "investigate serious acts of violence occurring since 1980, and

12772-403: The skull of the woman showed that she was hit with something hard and her skull bones were broken.Her skull also had crater-like deformations and tissue deformities that appeared to be caused by a bacterial relative of syphilis . According to study lead researcher Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, "It really looks as if this woman had a very hard time and an extremely unhappy end of her life. Obviously, this

12896-447: The specific variety of Chʼolan found in the majority of Southern Lowland glyphic texts was a language they dub "Classic Chʼoltiʼan", the ancestor language of the modern Chʼortiʼ and Chʼoltiʼ languages . They propose that it originated in western and south-central Petén Basin, and that it was used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. However, Mora-Marín has argued that traits shared by Classic Lowland Maya and

13020-586: The spread of a leftist insurrection. Napoleón Duarte was recalled from his exile in Venezuela to head this new junta. However, a revolution was already underway and his new role as head of the junta was seen by the general population as opportunistic. He was unable to influence the outcome of the insurrection. Óscar Romero , the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, denounced injustices and massacres committed against civilians by government forces. He

13144-406: The subject was definite. Today Yucatecan, Tzotzil and Tojolabʼal have a basic fixed VOS word order. Mamean, Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek and one dialect of Chuj have a fixed VSO one. Only Chʼortiʼ has a basic SVO word order. Other Mayan languages allow both VSO and VOS word orders. In many Mayan languages, counting requires the use of numeral classifiers , which specify the class of items being counted;

13268-557: The transition from Pleistocene to Holocene . Mayan languages 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. The Mayan language family

13392-415: The use of Marxist–Leninist ideology. In December 1930, at the height of the country's economic and social depression, Martí was once again exiled because of his popularity among the nation's poor and rumours of his upcoming nomination for president the following year. Once Araujo was elected president in 1931, Martí returned to El Salvador and, along with Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata, began the movement that

13516-645: The use of ergativity in the grammatical treatment of verbs and their subjects and objects, specific inflectional categories on verbs, and a special word class of "positionals" which is typical of all Mayan languages. During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history , some Mayan languages were written in the logo-syllabic Maya script . Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization (c. 250–900). The surviving corpus of over 5,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices , combined with

13640-412: The vowels. Some Kʼichean-branch languages have exhibited developed diphthongs from historical long vowels, by breaking /e:/ and /o:/. The morphology of Mayan languages is simpler than that of other Mesoamerican languages, yet its morphology is still considered agglutinating and polysynthetic . Verbs are marked for aspect or tense , the person of the subject , the person of the object (in

13764-552: The western part of the country, killing an estimated 2,000 people. The government suppressed the rebellion brutally, killing between 10,000 and 40,000 people, mostly, Pipil peasants. Many of the rebellion's leaders, including Ama and Martí, were captured and executed. Historically, the high Salvadoran population density has contributed to tensions with neighbouring Honduras , as land-poor Salvadorans emigrated to less densely populated Honduras and established themselves as squatters on unused or underused land. This phenomenon

13888-480: Was General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez . In December 1931, a coup d'état was organized by junior officers and led by Martínez. Only the First Regiment of Cavalry and the National Police defended the presidency (the National Police had been on its payroll), but later that night, after hours of fighting, the badly outnumbered defenders surrendered to rebel forces. The Directorate, composed of officers, hid behind

14012-627: Was a major cause of the 1969 Football War between the two countries. As many as 130,000 Salvadorans were forcibly expelled or fled from Honduras. The Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the National Conciliation Party (PCN) were active in Salvadoran politics from 1960 until 2011, when they were disbanded by the Supreme Court because they had failed to win enough votes in the 2004 presidential election. Both parties have since reconstituted. They share common ideals, but one represents

14136-537: Was brutal suppression of a rural revolt known as La Matanza . In the unstable political climate of the previous few years, social activist and revolutionary leader Farabundo Martí helped found the Communist Party of Central America, and led a communist alternative to the Red Cross, called " International Red Aid ", serving as one of its representatives. Their goal was to help poor and underprivileged Salvadorans through

14260-451: Was considered "the voice of the voiceless", but he was assassinated by a death squad while saying Mass on 24 March 1980. Some consider this to be the beginning of the full Salvadoran Civil War , which lasted from 1980 to 1992. An unknown number of people "disappeared" during the conflict, and the UN reports that more than 75,000 were killed. The Salvadoran Army 's US-trained Atlácatl Battalion

14384-430: Was defeated in the 1972 presidential elections. He lost to the ex-minister of interior, Colonel Arturo Armando Molina , in an election that was widely viewed as fraudulent; Molina was declared the winner even though Duarte was said to have received a majority of the votes. Duarte, at some army officers' requests, supported a revolt to protest the election fraud, but was captured, tortured and later exiled. Duarte returned to

14508-481: Was followed by the Melendez-Quinonez dynasty that lasted from 1913 to 1927. Pio Romero Bosque , ex-minister of the government and a trusted collaborator of the dynasty, succeeded President Jorge Meléndez , and in 1930 announced free elections, in which Arturo Araujo came to power on 1 March 1931, in what was considered the country's first freely contested election. His government lasted only nine months before it

14632-616: Was founded by Maya organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords , it has been gaining a growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples. The Mayan language family has no demonstrated genetic relationship to other language families. Similarities with some languages of Mesoamerica are understood to be due to diffusion of linguistic traits from neighboring languages into Mayan and not to common ancestry. Mesoamerica has been proven to be an area of substantial linguistic diffusion. A wide range of proposals have tried to link

14756-568: Was later truncated by the military. On 22 January 1932, thousands of poorly armed peasants in the western part of El Salvador revolted against the government and Martínez. The rebellion occurred amid widespread unrest over suppression of democratic political freedoms following the cancelation of the results of the 1932 legislative election. The rebels were led by  Feliciano Ama  and  Farabundo Martí and were largely composed of indigenous people and communists. The rebellion made gains initially, capturing several towns and cities across

14880-599: Was launched in 1814, which was also suppressed. In 1821, in light of unrest in Guatemala, Spanish authorities capitulated and signed the Act of Independence of Central America , which released all of the Captaincy General of Guatemala (comprising current territories of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and the Mexican state of Chiapas ) from Spanish rule and declared its independence. In 1821, El Salvador joined Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in

15004-472: Was noteworthy among indigenous leaders in that he mocked the Spanish by wearing their clothes after capturing them and using their weapons captured in battle. Lempira fought in command of thousands of Lenca forces for six more years in Managuara until he was killed in battle. The remaining Lenca forces retreated into the hills. The Spanish were then able to rebuild their garrison town of San Miguel in 1537. During

15128-437: Was overthrown by junior military officers who accused his Labor Party of lacking political and governmental experience and of using its government offices inefficiently. President Araujo faced general popular discontent, as the people had expected economic reforms and the redistribution of land. There were demonstrations in front of the National Palace from the first week of his administration. His vice president and minister of war

15252-558: Was previously also spoken in the extreme west of Honduras and El Salvador , but the Salvadorian variant is now extinct and the Honduran one is considered moribund. Chʼoltiʼ , a sister language of Chʼortiʼ, is also extinct. Chʼolan languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the Classic-era inscriptions found in

15376-602: Was responsible for the El Mozote massacre where more than 800 civilians were murdered, over half of them children, the El Calabozo massacre , and the murder of UCA scholars . On 16 January 1992, the government of El Salvador, represented by president Alfredo Cristiani , and the FMLN, represented by the commanders of the five guerrilla groups – Schafik Hándal , Joaquín Villalobos , Salvador Sánchez Cerén , Francisco Jovel and Eduardo Sancho , all signed peace agreements brokered by

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