The Jakaltek (''Jacaltec'') language, also known as Jakalteko (''Jacalteco'') or Poptiʼ, is a

Mayan language Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

from the Q’anjob’alan-chujean branch spoken by the

Jakaltek people The Jakaltek people are a Mayan people, Maya people who lives alongside the border of the State of Chiapas in southern Mexico and the Departments of Guatemala, Department of Huehuetenango Department, Huehuetenango in northwestern Guatemala. Since ...

in some municipalities in the state of Chiapas, Mexico and the municipality of

Jacaltenango Jacaltenango is a town and municipality situated in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. It is located in a valley surrounded by the Sierra Madre Mountains. Jacaltenango serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same na ...

in the department of

Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American Hi ...

, Guatemala in the border between both countries. Jakaltek is closely related with the Q'anjob'al and Akatek language and more distantly related with the Tojol-ab'al,

Chuj Chuj might refer to: * A component of Russian and Polish profanity * Chuj language, a Mayan language spoken in western Guatemala and southern Mexico * Chuj people The Chuj or Chuh are a Maya people, whose homeland is in Guatemala and Mexico. Popul ...

and Mocho'. In Mexico it is also known as Ab'xub'al.

History

Jakaltek was the language spoken by the population of the site of El Lagartero, in the present day municipality of La Trinitaria in Chiapas, Mexico, the site was inhabited from 300 AD to 1400 AD between the late classic and postclassic period of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

Distribution

In Mexico, Jakaltek is mainly spoken in the state of Chiapas in the communities of Bienestar Social, Flor de Mayo, Guadalupe Victoria, Ojo de Agua, Pacayalito and Huixquilar from the municipality of

Amatenango de la Frontera Amatenango de la Frontera is a town and municipality in the Mexican state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. It covers an area of 171.4 km² and is a part of Mexico's border with Guatemala. As of 2010, the municipality had a total populatio ...

, in Los Pocitos from the municipality of Bella Vista, in El Mango, Frontera Comalapa and Sunzapote from the municipality of

Frontera Comalapa Frontera Comalapa is a town and municipality in the Mexican state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. It covers an area of 717.90 km². As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 67,012, up from 52,168 as of 2005. As of 2010, the cit ...

and in El Vergel Dos, La Campana, La Gloria, El Colorado and Nuevo Villaflores from the municipality of La Trinitaria. There are also Jakaltek communities in Campeche in the municipalities of

Campeche Campeche, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche, is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, make up the Administrative divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. Located in southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the sta ...

and Champotón. Municipalities in Huehuetenango where Jakaltek is spoken include the following (''Variación Dialectal en Poptiʼ, 2000''). *

Concepción Huista Concepción Huista () is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Climate Concepción Huista has a subtropical highland climate (Köppen: ''Cwb''). Geographic location Concepción Huista is completely surro ...

(including the following villages) ** '' San Marcos Huista'' ** '' San Andrés Huista'' ** '' Yinhchʼewex'' *

Nentón Nentón is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Its territory extends 717 km2 with a population of 45,679. It became a municipality on December 5, 1876 and was formerly known as San Benito Nentón. The pop ...

San Antonio Huista San Antonio Huista is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is located 362 kilometers from Guatemala City. The predominant language is Spanish, while approximately 20% of the population speak indigenous language ...

Santa Ana Huista Santa Ana Huista () is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situa ...

* Buxup * Tzisbʼaj

Phonology

The Eastern Jakaltek language includes the following

phonemes A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

. The orthography used by the

Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG (English: ''Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages'') is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 22 Mayan languages spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended partic ...

is on the left, the other main orthography is on the right. It also has the vowels a , e , i , o , u

Eastern Jakaltek is one of the few languages besides the

Malagasy language Malagasy ( ; ; Sorabe: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language and dialect continuum spoken in Madagascar. The standard variety, called Official Malagasy, is one of the official languages of Madagascar, alongside French language, F ...

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

to make use of an n-

trema Trema may refer to: * a Greek and Latin root meaning ''hole'' * Trema, a term for the two dots (diacritic) ** Tréma, (French), a diaeresis * ''Trema'' (plant), a genus of about 15 species of small evergreen trees * Tréma (record label), a Fr ...

character in its alphabet. In both languages, the n-trema represents a

velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as eng, engma, or agma (from Greek 'fragment'), is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''E ...

consonant (like "ng" in "bang").

Use in media

Jakaltek-language programming is carried by the INPI's radio station

XEVFS XEVFS-AM (''La Voz de la Frontera Sur'' – "The Voice of the Southern Border") is an indigenous community radio station that broadcasts in Spanish, Tojolabal, Mam, Tseltal, Tsotsil and Popti (otherwise known as Jakaltek) from Las Margarit ...

, broadcasting from

Las Margaritas, Chiapas Las Margaritas is a city, and the surrounding municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The municipal seat is located some 25 km to the northeast of Comitán de Domínguez, while the municipality extends to the east as ...

Grammar

The Jakaltek language has a verb–subject–object syntax. Like many Native American languages, Jakaltek has complex

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

and uses ergative–absolutive case alignment. It is divided in two dialects, Eastern and Western Jakalteko. "Eastern and Western Jakalteko understand each other's spoken languages, but not written text." Jakaltek is unusual in that it has four systems of noun and numeral classifiers. Owing to Jakaltek's dissimilarity with

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia ( ...

s, the reasonably healthy linguistic population and the relative ease of access to Guatemala, Jakaltek has become a favorite of students of

linguistic typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...

References

Bibliography

* Craig, Colette G. (1977). The Structure of Jacaltec. Austin: University of Texas Press. 432pp.

External links

Jacalteco Collection of Colette Grinevald
– Collection of audio recordings in Jakaltek at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas Agglutinative languages Indigenous languages of Mexico Indigenous languages of Central America Languages of Guatemala Huehuetenango Department Mayan languages Indigenous peoples of Central America Mesoamerican languages Verb–subject–object languages Languages of Mexico {{Mayan-lang-stub