K'iche' language

Spoken in

-

The K'iche ' language ( Spanish) or K'iche ' ( proper name ) is the language of the indigenous people of Quiché in Guatemala and with over 2 million speakers, the most widely spoken Mayan language.

Dissemination

The Quiché language area includes large parts of the highlands of Guatemala, especially in the department of Quiché, in addition also in Totonicapán, Solola and Quetzaltenango. In Guatemala, it is the most widely spoken indigenous language, and it is one of the indigenous languages ​​of the Americas with the largest numbers of speakers. Apart from some remote areas dominate most Quiché spokesman, to a certain extent, Spanish.

Quiché has some quite different dialects (SIL International) are considered as separate languages ​​by some experts, especially from the Summer Institute of Linguistics. The variant Central Quiché constitutes the largest number of speakers and is also favored in the media and in schools. Several other major dialects are West Central Quiché, San Andrés Quiché, Joyabaj - Quiché, East Quiché, Nahualá - Quiché and Cunén - Quiché. Although Quiché has no official status in Guatemala, it is now taught in some schools and used on the radio. However, only few people can read and write Quiché, both at the same according to SIL information only 20,000 people ( about 1%), an additional 20,000, it can only read thereafter.

In the 2002 census gave 890 596 (8.7%) K'iche ' as mother tongue; 1,270,953 (11.3%) described themselves as K'iche '. SIL International is, however, only for Central Quiché 1.9 million speakers in, along with another, smaller Quiché variants significantly above 2 million.

Old literary tradition

His most famous work, which was written on Quiché, however, in Latin script, is the Popol Vuh ( Popol Wuj in modern Quiché spelling ).

Before the Conquest Quiché was written with the Maya writing.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Orthography

Since the colonial period until well into the 20th century, various, based on the Spanish spellings were used for all Mayan languages ​​. Even Father Ximénez used a fundamentally Spanish orthography for the written fixation of the Popol Wuj. Only in recent years there has been in Guatemala a generally accepted standard font, which is determined by the ALMG ( Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala). This orthography is the same ( phonetic value of the letters k and q and apostrophe ' for ejectives ) with the official alphabets for Quechua and Aymara in South America in substantial parts.

Syntax and Morphology

Quiché (as the Mayathan ) a SPO language ( subject-predicate - object), while many other Mayan languages ​​PSO languages ​​. The word order is not fixed, so that often the PSO sequence is employed.

Phonetic features

While adults raise in most languages ​​of the world their pitch when speaking with young children, the pitch will fall in Quiché - speakers in this case. The reason for this is considered that in the Quiché speaking to high pitch is mainly used in the salutation of higher status people.

Nahualá - Quiché

The Quiché variant of Nahualá is characterized by the receipt of some very primitive language features of Proto- Mayan. This includes in particular the distinction five long (aa, ee, ii, oo, uu ) and five short vowels (a, e, i, o, u). After this debate is the name of the language K'ichee ' and not K'iche '. In addition, have the phonemes [h ] and [ N] is held in Nahualá - Quiché, both of which occur only in word-final and almost exclusively after short vowels. [ N], however, occurs only in a few words.

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