The Chʼol (Chol) language is a member of the western branch of the

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 ...

family used by the

Chʼol people The Chʼol are an indigenous people of Mexico, mainly in the northern Chiapas highlands in the state of Chiapas. As one of the Maya peoples, their indigenous language is from the Mayan language family, known also as Chʼol. According to the 2 ...

in the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...

. 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

. * 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. The Cholan branch of the Mayan languages is considered to be particularly

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

and Chʼol along with its two closest relatives the

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 ma ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

and

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

, and the

Chontal Maya language ''Yokotʼan'' (self-denomination), also known as Chontal Maya, is a Maya language of the Cholan family spoken in 2020 by around 60 thousand Chontal Maya people of the Mexican state of Tabasco. According to the National Catalog of Indigenous Lan ...

Tabasco Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa. It is located in ...

are believed to be the modern languages that best reflect their relationship with the

Classic Maya language A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...

.Houston, S., O. Chinchilla, Stuart D. "The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing", U. of Oklahoma Press, 2001. Chʼol-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station

XEXPUJ-AM XEXPUJ-AM (''La Voz del Corazón de la Selva'' – "The Voice of the Heart of the Rain Forest") is an indigenous community radio station broadcasting in Spanish, Yucatec Maya and Ch'ol from Xpujil, Calakmul Municipality, in the Mexican state ...

, broadcasting from

Xpujil Xpujil is a town in the Mexican state of Campeche. It serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of Calakmul. As of 2010, Xpujil had a population of 3,984. Xpujil is located in the south-east of the state, close to the border ...

Campeche Campeche (; yua, Kaampech ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Campeche), is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in southeast Mexico, it is bordered by ...

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. Chʼol is a

split ergative In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...

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. 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.

Phonology

Below is the consonant and vowel inventory of Chʼol. Alveolar sounds are only heard as allophones of /, /.

Writing system

Ch’ol relationship with Mayan glyphs

The absence of glyphic material in

points that the calendar was a creation of the lowland Maya. Ch’ol has been considered one of the closer languages to several Mayan glyphs inscriptions. Lounsbury suggested that the ancient Palenqueños spoke a Proto-cholean language. A certain Palenque ruler has the glyph of a

Quetzal Quetzals () are strikingly colored birds in the trogon family. They are found in forests, especially in humid highlands, with the five species from the genus ''Pharomachrus'' being exclusively Neotropical, while a single species, the eared quet ...

head for his name and because the word for Quetzal in Chol is ''kuk'', it is conjectured that his name was Lord ''Kuk''. 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 The Tzotzil are an indigenous Maya people of the central Chiapas highlands in southern Mexico. As cited by Alfredo López Austin (1997), p. 133, 148 and following. As of 2000, they numbered about 298,000. The municipalities with the largest Tzo ...

are far from complete, it is not possible to establish some cognates between these languages and

Mayan glyphs Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...

. An alternative hypothesis developed by Houston, Robertson, and Stuart proposed that

Classic Maya A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...

inscriptions between A.D. 250 and 850 convey to Eastern Ch’olan languages, more related to Chorti language than Ch’ol language. However, there is no consensus around the topic.

Notes

References

* * * ncludes a grammatical sketch of the language* . * * *

External links

El chʼol
website with links to unpublished scholarly work on the language
Chol Collection
of Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez and

Jessica Coon Jessica Coon is a professor of linguistics at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in syntax and indigenous languages. She was the linguistics expert consultant for the 2016 film '' Arrival''. Coon works on ergativity, split ergat ...

at the

Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is a digital repository housed in LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas at Austin. AILLA is a digital language archive dedicated to the digi ...

. Significant amount of audio and video recordings in Chʼol with transcriptions and Spanish translations.
Chol Collection
of Carol Rose Little at the

. Audio and video recordings in Chʼol with transcriptions and Spanish translations.
Mayan Languages Collection
of

Victoria Bricker Victoria'' ''Reifler'' ''Bricker (born 1940) is an American anthropologist, ethnographer and linguist, widely known for her ground-breaking studies of contemporary and historical Maya culture. Early life and education Born in Hong Kong, Bricker ...