Chʼortiʼ language

The Chʼortiʼ language (sometimes also Chorti) 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
Native to	Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador
Region	Copán
Ethnicity	Chʼortiʼ
Native speakers	30,000 (2000)
Language family	Mayan Cholan–Tzeltalan Cholan Chʼortiʼ
Early form	Classic Maya
Language codes
ISO 639-3	caa
Glottolog	chor1273
ELP	Ch'orti'

Classification

Chʼortiʼ can be called 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 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.

A map showing the present-day locations of the Mayan Languages. The colors of the language names show closely-related groups. The size of the name shows the relative number of speakers.

The name Chʼortiʼ (with unglottalized <ch>) means 'language of the corn farmers', a reference to the traditional agricultural activity of Chʼortiʼ families. It 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 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.

Endangerment

The Chʼortiʼ people are descendants of 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.

Geographic location

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 the rest are sparsely distributed throughout the rest of the area.

Honduras

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 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.

Guatemala

The government of Guatemala has been more supportive of Chʼorti speakers and has promoted programs that encourage 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.

Ethnonyms: Cholotí, Chorté, Chortí

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 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.

Phonology and orthography

The Chʼortiʼ have their own standard way of writing their language. However, inaccurate ways to represent phonemes led to some variation among recent publications.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩
Plosive	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩		k ⟨k⟩	ʔ ⟨ʼ⟩
	glottalic	ɓ ⟨bʼ⟩	tʼ ⟨tʼ⟩		kʼ ⟨kʼ⟩
	voiced	(b ⟨b⟩)	(d ⟨d⟩)		(ɡ ⟨g⟩)
Affricate	voiceless		ts ⟨tz⟩	tʃ ⟨ch⟩
	glottalic		tsʼ ⟨tzʼ⟩	tʃʼ ⟨chʼ⟩
Fricative			s ⟨s⟩	ʃ ⟨x⟩	x ⟨j⟩	h ⟨j⟩
Trill			r ⟨r⟩
Approximant			l ⟨l⟩	j ⟨y⟩	w ⟨w⟩

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.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

The vowels consist of a, e, i, o, and u.

Vowel clusters

Characters we use	Sometimes also used	IPA symbol	Chʼortiʼ pronunciation
aa	ā, aꞏ, a꞉	a	Like regular a but held longer
ee	ē, eꞏ, e꞉	e	Like e only held longer
ii	ī, iꞏ, i꞉	i	Like i only held longer
oo	ō, oꞏ, o꞉	o	Like o only held longer
uu	ū, uꞏ, u꞉	u	Like u only held longer

When two vowels are put together in Chʼortiʼ 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꞉

• Jaʼx [xaʔʃ] = Her, ella
• Weʼr [weʔr] = meat, carne  
• Bʼiʼx [pʼiʔʃ] = seed, semilla
• Tunoʼron [tunoʔɾon] = everyone, todos
• Kuʼm [kuʔm] = egg, huevo

Syntax

The aspectual system of Chʼortiʼ language changed to 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)

Transitive

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 the wood (into tiny pieces)'

Intransitive completive

intzaj

sweet

lokʼoy-Ø

go.out-B-3

e

def

peʼych

tomato

intzaj lokʼoy-Ø e peʼych

sweet go.out-B-3 def tomato

'The tomato turned out delicious'

Intransitive incompletive

e

def

kʼin

sun

a-lokʼoy

C-1-go.out

ta

prep

ixner

going

kʼin

sun

e kʼin a-lokʼoy ta ixner kʼin

def sun C-1-go.out prep going sun

'The sun sets in the west'

Basic word order

In the Chʼortiʼ language and other Mayan sentences it always starts with verbs but also there are agents or patients added and in which they are commonly represented by the acronym VOS, meaning verb-object-subject. The following rules apply VSO, SVO, SOV, OVS, OSV.

In most of the Chʼortiʼ language there are phrases surrounding transitive verbs and they are order subject first (first-most) and it's followed by the verb then the object (SVO).

Uchoni

verb

sells

e kar

object

vegetables

enoya

subject

grandma

Uchoni {e kar} enoya

verb object subject

sells vegetables grandma

"Grandma sells vegetables."

Adjectives with attributive function

The adjective works together with the nouns as a modifier formed with a noun phrase that plays some syntactic role, object etc.

Predicative adjective indicate the size, color or state

E bʼikʼit

adjective

The little

yurwobʼ

noun

chicks

chamobʼ

verb

died

{E bʼikʼit} yurwobʼ chamobʼ

adjective noun verb

{The little} chicks died

inchoni

verb

I am selling

e yaxax

adjective

green

pe'ych

noun

tomato

inchoni {e yaxax} pe'ych

verb adjective noun

{I am selling} green tomato

Chʼortiʼ has many other different forms, in the following sentence the words that appear to be bold is a preposition and underline one is a relational noun.

E

The

chij

horse

numuy

passed

tu't

in.front.of

e

the

max-tak

child-PL

E chij numuy tu't e max-tak

The horse passed in.front.of the child-PL

"The horse passed in front of the children"

Morphology

Verb inflection

Verb Inflections in Chʼortiʼ

		Ergative (Set A)	Absolutive (Set B)	Subjective (Set C)
1st person	singular	in-/ni-	-en	in-
	plural	ka-	-on	ka-
2nd person	singular	a-	-et	i-
	plural	i-	-ox	ix-
3rd person	singular	u-	-Ø	a-
	plural	u-...-obʼ	-obʼ	aʼ...-obʼ

Examples of inflected verbs from Isidro González's stories (John Fought, 1972):

Verb Inflection Examples

Uninflected Verb	Inflected Verb
ixin ixin "to go"	ixinobʼ go--PL ixinobʼ go-A3-PL "they went"
ira ira “to see”	uwira -see- uwira E3-see-A3 “he sees it”
kojko kojko “to guard”	ukojkobʼ -guard--PL ukojkobʼ E3-guard-A3-PL “they guard over it”
ixin ixin “to go”	aʼxin -go aʼxin S3-go “he goes”

Possessions

Tak is plural for women and childrenʼ

• ijchʼok-tak "little girls"
• max-tak "children, young ones, family" (max does not occur without -tak)
• ixik-tak "women"

These are the only instances encountered. It is worthy of notice that ixkaʼr "wife", chʼurkabʼ "baby" and ar "offspring" take -ob'.

obʼ is a general plural. The suffix can be found in nouns, verbs, adjectives, and participials.

Examples on possessives:

e mutobʼ war ubʼaxyobʼ nijinaj

e

DEF.ART

mut-obʼ

bird-3.PL

war

PROG

u-bʼax-i-obʼ

-pull up--3.PL

ni-jinaj

.SG-maize plant

e mut-obʼ war u-bʼax-i-obʼ ni-jinaj

DEF.ART bird-3.PL PROG {3A-pull up-THEM-3.PL} {1A.SG-maize plant}

The birds are pulling my maize plant.

Yarobʼ bʼikʼit ruch

Yar-obʼ

small-3.PL

bʼikʼit

small variety of

ruch

gourd container

Yar-obʼ bʼikʼit ruch

small-3.PL {small variety of} {gourd container}

And then come two little gourds,... (f330040)

Vocabulary

The following list contains examples of common words in the Chʼortiʼ language:

Common Words

English	Chʼortiʼ	English	Chʼortiʼ
big	nixiʼ	fire	kʼajkʼ
bird	mut	here	tara
cold	insis	what	tukʼa
dog	txʼiʼ	husband	noxibʼ
day	kʼin	man	winik'
beverage	uchʼe	moon	uj
earth	rum	mountain	witzir

According to "A Dictionary of Chʼortiʼ Maya, Guatemala" by Kerry Hull, some words may be used as nouns (as shown above) or can double as a verb as well. For example "Witzir" can mean mountain as a noun, or 'to go uphill' as a verb.

External links

• Online version of Wisdom's Chorti Dictionary (1950)
• Oral Histories of the Chʼortiʼ Maya (2011)
• Mayan Languages Collection of John Fought Archived 2020-09-26 at the Wayback Machine at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, containing several hundred recordings of Chʼortiʼ made between 1964 and 1967 in Guatemala, field notes and photographs.
• Information about Chʼortiʼ language

• Linguamón Ch'orti'