Qʼanjobʼal

    Q’anjob’al or Kanjobal is a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala and Mexico. It is spoken mainly in the Huehuetenango department of Guatemala in the municipalities of Santa Eulalia (Jolom Konob), San Juan Ixcoy (Yich K’ox), San Pedro Soloma (Tz’uluma’) and Santa Cruz Barillas (Yal Motx), and in the south of Chiapas in Mexico. According to the 2003 census, there were about 140,000 speakers of Q’anjob’al in Guatemala, and another 8,340 speakers in Mexico.

Classification

    Qʼanjobʼal is a member of the Qʼanjobʼalan branch of the Mayan language family. The Mayan language family includes 31 languages, two of which are now extinct. The Qʼanjobʼalan branch includes not only Qʼanjobʼal itself but also Chuj, Akatek, and Jakaltek, also spoken in Guatemala. The Qʼanjobʼalan languages are noted for being among the most conservative of the Mayan language family, although they do include some interesting innovations. Q’anjob’al is also known as Conob, Eastern Kanjobal, Eastern Qanjobal, K’anjobal, Kanhobal, Kanjobal, Qanjobal or Santa Eulalia Kanjobal. It closely related to Chuj, Akatek and Jakaltek, which are also spoken in Guatemala.

Vocabulary

    Qʼanjobʼal consists of groups of roots that can take affixes. Words are traditionally classified as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, intransitive and transitive verbs, particles, and positionals. Positionals are a group of roots which cannot function as words on their own; in combination with affixes they are used to describe relationships of position and location. Particles are words that do not take affixes; they mostly function in adverbial roles, and include such things as interrogative particles, affirmative/negative words, markers of time and location, conjunctions, prepositions and demonstratives.
 
At Trápaga Asociados – Interpretation & Translation Agency, we work with all Mayan languages including Qʼanjobʼal.
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 Mam

 

Mam is a Mayan language spoken by about half a million people in Guatemala, mainly in the departments of Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango and San Marcos. It is also spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas along the border with Guatemala.

 

There are three main varieties of Mam: Northern Mam, which is spoken in Huehuetenango; Southern Mam, which is spoken in Quetzaltenango, and Central Mam, which is spoken in San Marcos. Each of these has many sub-dialects and there is considerable variation in the language from village to village, however Mam speakers are able to understand one another reasonably well.

           

Classification

Mam is closely related to the Tektitek language, and the two languages together form the Mamean sub-branch of the Mayan language family. Along with the Ixilan languages, Awakatek and Ixil, these make up the Greater Mamean sub-branch, one of the two branches of the Eastern Mayan languages (the other being the Greater Quichean sub-branch, which consists of 10 Mayan languages, including Kʼicheʼ).

 

Dialects

Because contact between members of different Mam communities is somewhat limited, the language varies considerably even from village to village. Nevertheless, mutual intelligibility, though difficult, is possible through practice.

 

 

Mam varieties within Guatemala are divided into four dialect groups:

Northern Mam in southern Huehuetenango Department. Northern Mam is the least conservative group according to Terrence Kaufman.

Southern Mam in Quetzaltenango Department, San Marcos Department, and Retalhuleu Department.

Central Mam in San Marcos Department.

Western Mam in northwestern San Marcos Department. The Tektitek language may be mutually intelligible with Western Mam dialects.

In addition to these, the dialects of Chiapas, Mexico may form a fifth dialect group, characterized by significant grammatical as well as lexical differences from the Guatemalan varieties.

 

At Trápaga Asociados – Interpretation & Translation Agency, we work with all Mayan languages including Mam.

Please contact us with any job or project inquiries.

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 Qʼeqchiʼ

    This Mayan language is spoken in Guatemala by about 500,000 people and Belize Q'eqchi' speakers are found mainly in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Petén, Izabal, Baja Verapaz, and El Quiché of Guatemala, and in the Toledo district of Belize.

    Q’eqchi’ is a Mayan language of the Eastern Mayan K’ichean (formerly spelled Quichean) branch. The formal classification is: Proto-Maya/ Eastern Mayan/ K’ichean-Mamean/ Q’eqchi’ (Campbell and Kaufman 1985). They are the predominant Maya group in the central highlands and northern lowlands of Guatemala.

    Before the beginning of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in the 1520s, Qʼeqchiʼ settlements were concentrated in what are now the departments of Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz. Over the course of the succeeding centuries a series of land displacements, resettlements, persecutions and migrations resulted in a wider dispersal of Qʼeqchiʼ communities into other regions of Guatemala (Izabal, Petén, El Quiché), southern Belize (Toledo District), and smaller numbers in southern Mexico (Chiapas, Campeche). While most notably present in northern Alta Verapaz and southern Petén, contemporary Qʼeqchiʼ language-speakers are the most widely spread geographically of all Maya peoples in Guatemala.

 

At Trápaga Asociados – Interpretation & Translation Agency, we work with all Mayan languages including Qʼeqchiʼ.

Please contact us with any job or project inquiries.

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 K’iche’

Also known as Qatzijobʼal lit. 'our language' among its speakers, or Quiché, is a Mayan language of Guatemala, spoken by the Kʼicheʼ people of the central highlands. With over a million speakers (some 7% of Guatemala's population), Kʼicheʼ is the second most widely-spoken language in the country, after Spanish. It is also the most widely-spoken indigenous American language in Mesoamerica.

The Central dialect is the most commonly used in media and education. Despite a low literacy rate, Kʼicheʼ is increasingly taught in schools and used on the radio. The most famous work in the Classical Kʼicheʼ language is the Popol Vuh (Popol Wuʼuj in modern spelling).

Mayan K'iche' is one of the most common indigenous languages in Latin America, spoken by about 1 million Maya K’iche’ in the western Highlands of Guatemala, the heartland of Maya Culture. Also known as “Quiché”, it is a Mayan language, the origin of this language is believed to be over 4,000 years ago, the status of this language is actually that K’iche’ is spoken by 2.3 million people, as a first or second language. 300,000 of them are monolingual speakers of the language (Ethnologue). It is the second most widely spoken language in Guatemala after Spanish. It has played an important role in the Mayan cultural revitalization movement. Although it has no official status in Guatemala, and although the first-language literacy rate is only about 1%, K’iche’ is being increasingly taught in schools and used on the radio.

K’iche’ from an ancestral Proto-Mayan language that was spoken by the people who inhabited what are today Guatemala, Honduras, and the Yucatán peninsula. The language underwent a spelling change as a result of the 1987 Guatemalan Government Decree which regularized Mayan orthographies that were previously based on Spanish traditions. K’iche’ has a long literary tradition, e.g., Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas, representing an account of Maya history and mythology, beginning with the creation of the world and written in Classical K’iche’. The K’iche’ culture reached its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest.

Currently, the following software platforms can be found in K’iche’: Microsoft Office, Skype, Xbox, Facebook, and more!

 

At Trápaga Asociados – Interpretation & Translation Agency, we work with all Mayan languages including K’iche’.

Please contact us with any job or project inquiries.

http://www.asociadostrapaga.com

legal@asociadostrapaga.com

+502 55717516