Chʼol language

For similar terms, see Chʼol (disambiguation) and Chol (disambiguation).

The Chʼol (Chol) language is a member of the western branch of the Mayan language family used by the Chʼol people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. There are two main dialects:

• Chʼol of Tila spoken by 43,870 people of whom 10,000 are monolinguals in the villages of Tila, Vicente Guerrero, Chivalito and Limar in Chiapas.
• Chʼol of Tumbalá spoken by 90,000 people of whom 30,000 are monolinguals in the villages of Tumbalá, Sabanilla, Misijá, Limar, Chivalita and Vicente Guerrero.

Chʼol
Native to	Mexico
Region	North Central Chiapas Tabasco
Ethnicity	Chʼol people
Native speakers	250,000 (2020 census)^[1]
Language family	Mayan Cholan–Tzeltalan Cholan Chol–Chontal Chʼol
Early form	Classic Maya
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ctu
Glottolog	chol1282
ELP	Chol

The Cholan branch of the Mayan languages is considered to be particularly conservative and Chʼol along with its two closest relatives the Chʼortiʼ language of Guatemala and Honduras, and the Chontal Maya language of Tabasco are believed to be the modern languages that best reflect their relationship with the Classic Maya language.^[2]

Chʼol-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XEXPUJ-AM, broadcasting from Xpujil, Campeche.

Morphosyntax

The basic word order is VOS. However, word order varies and VOS is not always grammatical: factors including animacy, definiteness, topicalization and focus contribute to determining which word order is appropriate.^[3]

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.^[4]

Numeral classifiers are obligatorily included in noun phrases containing numerals. They occur between the numeral and the noun. The classifiers vary according to semantic properties of the noun: -tyikil is used for persons, -tyejk for trees, etc.^[5]

Phonology

Below is the consonant and vowel inventory of Chʼol.^[6]

		Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m			ɲ
Plosive/ Affricate	Voiceless	p	ts	tʃ	tʲ	k	ʔ
	Ejective	pʼ	tsʼ	tʃʼ	tʲʼ	kʼ
	Voiced	b
Fricative			s	ʃ		x
Liquid	lateral		l
	rhotic		r
Glide		w			j

Alveolar sounds [n, t] are only heard as allophones of /ɲ, ts/.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Writing system

Chꞌol alphabet of Tumbála (de Aulie)^[7]

Uppercase	A	Ʌ	B	C	Cꞌ	Ch	Chꞌ	D	E	I	J	L	M	N	Ñ	O
Lowercase	a	ʌ	b	c	cꞌ	ch	chꞌ	d	e	i	j	l	m	n	ñ	o
Uppercase	P	Pꞌ	Q	Qꞌ	R	S	T	Tꞌ	Ts	Tsꞌ	U	W	X	Y	Ꞌ
Lowercase	p	pꞌ	q	qꞌ	r	s	t	tꞌ	ts	tsꞌ	u	w	x	y	ꞌ

Chꞌol alphabet of Tila (Warkentin and Scott)^[8]

Uppercase	A	Ʌ	B	C	Cꞌ	Ch	Chꞌ	E	I	J	L	M	N	Ñ	O	Pꞌ
Lowercase	a	ʌ	b	c	cꞌ	ch	chꞌ	e	i	j	l	m	n	ñ	o	pꞌ
Uppercase	Q	Qu'	Qꞌu	R	S	T	Ty	Tꞌ	Ts	Tsꞌ	U	W	X	Y	Ꞌ
Lowercase	q	qu'	qꞌu	r	s	t	ty	tꞌ	ts	tsꞌ	u	w	x	y	ꞌ

Chꞌol alphabet (INALI)^[9]

Uppercase	A	B	CH	CHꞋ	E	I	J	K	KꞋ	L	M	N	Ñ	O	P
Lowercase	a	b	ch	chꞌ	e	i	j	k	kꞌ	l	m	n	ñ	o	p
Uppercase	PꞋ	R	S	T	TS	TSꞋ	TY	TYꞋ	U	W	X	Y	Ä	Ꞌ
Lowercase	pꞌ	r	s	t	ts	tsꞌ	ty	tyꞌ	u	w	x	y	ä	ꞌ

Ch’ol relationship with Mayan glyphs

The absence of glyphic material in Guatemala points that the calendar was a creation of the lowland Maya.^[2] Ch’ol has been considered one of the closer languages to several Mayan glyphs inscriptions.^[10] 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.^[11] The affix Landa's I that occurs only with posterior date indicators retains resemblance with 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.^[2]

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.^[12] However, there is no consensus around the topic.

See also

• Acala Chʼol
• Lakandon Chʼol
• Manche Chʼol

Notes

1. Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
2. Houston, S., O. Chinchilla, Stuart D. "The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing", U. of Oklahoma Press, 2001.
3. Vázquez Álvarez, Juan Jesús. A Grammar of Chol, a Mayan Language. Austin, Texas: University of Texas at Austin, 2011; pp.21–22
4. Vázquez Álvarez, Juan Jesús. A Grammar of Chol, a Mayan Language. Austin, Texas: University of Texas at Austin, 2011; pp.177–178
5. Vázquez Álvarez, Juan Jesús. A Grammar of Chol, a Mayan Language. Austin, Texas: University of Texas at Austin, 2011; p.160
6. Vázquez Álvarez, Juan Jesús. A Grammar of Chol, a Mayan Language. Austin, Texas: University of Texas at Austin, 2011; p.35
7. de Aulie & de Aulie 2009, p. xxi.
8. Warkentin & Scott 1980, p. 3.
9. INALI 2011.
10. Hopkins, Nicholas A.; Josserand, Kathryn (2010). INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF CHOL (MAYAN): With a Sketch of the Grammar of Chol (PDF).
11. Matthews, Peter; Schele, Linda (1974). "Lords of Palenque: The Glyphic Evidence". Primera Mesa Redonda de Palenque : a Conference on the Art, Iconography, and Dynastic History of Palenque, Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, December 14–22, 1973. Robert Louis Stevenson School, Pre-Columbian Art Research. OCLC 834378616.
12. Houston, Stephen; Robertson, John; Stuart, David (2000-06-01). "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions". Current Anthropology. 41 (3): 321–356. doi:10.1086/300142. ISSN 0011-3204. PMID 10768879. S2CID 741601.

References

• Aulie, H. Wilbur; Evelyn W. Aulie, eds. (1998) [1978]. Diccionario Chʼol de Tumbalá, Chiapas, con variaciones dialectales de Tila y Sabanilla [Chʼol Dictionary of Tumbalá, Chiapas with dialectal variations from Tila and Sabanilla]. Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas "Mariano Silva y Aceves", No. 121. Emily Stairs (electronic reproduction with March 2005 corrections, 2nd ed.). Coyoacán, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. ISBN 968-31-0291-3. OCLC 42692322.
• de Aulie, Wilbur H.; de Aulie, Evelyn W. (2009). Diccionario chꞌol de Tumbalá, Chiapas, con variaciones dialectales de Tila y Sabanilla (in Spanish). Mexico: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
• Coon, Jessica (2010). "Complementation in Chol (Mayan): A Theory of Split Ergativity" (electronic version). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2010-07-15. [includes a grammatical sketch of the language]
• Schumann, Otto Gálvez (1973). La lengua Chol de Tila (Chiapas). UNAM..
• Warkentin, Viola; Scott, Ruby (1980). Gramática Chʼol. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
• . site.inali.gob.mx. Archived from the original on 2019-10-26. Retrieved 2019-10-26.
• Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) (2011). Chꞌol: Ityoj tsꞌijbuñtyel laktyꞌañ chꞌol / Chꞌol: Norma de escritura de la lengua chꞌol (PDF) (in Spanish). México : El Instituto; Chiapas: Gobierno del Estado. Secretaría de Educación : Universidad Intercultural de Chiapas. ISBN 978-607-7538-54-7.

External links

 

Chʼol language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• El chʼol, website with links to unpublished scholarly work on the language
• Chol Collection of Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez and Jessica Coon at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Significant amount of audio and video recordings in Chʼol with transcriptions and Spanish translations.
• Chol Collection of Carol Rose Little at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Audio and video recordings in Chʼol with transcriptions and Spanish translations.
• Mayan Languages Collection of Victoria Bricker at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Contains a recording of a Chʼol narrative from Tila, Chiapas.
• Mayan Languages Collection of Nicholas Hopkins at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Contains many recordings in Chʼol as well as Chuj, another Mayan language.