Mopan (or Mopan Maya) is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the

Mayan languages The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...

. It is spoken by the

Mopan people The Mopan people are an indigenous, sub-ethnic group of the Maya peoples. They are native to regions of Belize and Guatemala. History In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British forced the Mopan out of Belize and into Guatemala. There, they endu ...

who live in the

Petén Department Petén is a department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area at it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population at the mid-2018 o ...

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 in the

Maya Mountains The Maya Mountains are a mountain range located in Belize and eastern Guatemala, in Central America. Etymology The Maya Mountains were known as the ''Cockscomb'' or ''Coxcomb Mountains'' to Baymen and later Belizeans at least until the mid-2 ...

region of

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

. There are between three and four thousand Mopan speakers in Guatemala and six to eight thousand in Belize.Hofling, ''Mopan Maya–Spanish–English Dictionary'', 1. The other Yucatecan languages are

Yucatec Yucatec Maya (; referred to by its speakers simply as Maya or as , is one of the 32 Mayan languages of the Mayan language family. Yucatec Maya is spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic commu ...

, Lacandon, and Itzaʼ. Mopan began to diverge from the other Yucatecan languages at least one thousand years ago.

Distribution

Towns where Mopan is prominently spoken include San Luis,

Poptún Poptún is a municipality in the El Petén department of Guatemala. It covers an area of 1,128 km2, and had a population of 35,663 at the 2002 Census; the latest official estimate (as at mid-2012) was 64,988. It is some 385 km from Guat ...

Melchor de Mencos Melchor de Mencos is a municipality in the Petén Department of Guatemala with population 23,813. It is situated on the eastern border with Belize, and is the only major border crossing from Guatemala to Belize. The city was established in April ...

, and

Dolores Dolores, Spanish for "pain; grief", most commonly refers to: * Our Lady of Sorrows or La Virgen María de los Dolores * Dolores (given name) Dolores may also refer to: Film * ''Dolores'' (2017 film), an American documentary by Peter Bratt * ' ...

in Guatemala,Kaufman, ''Proyecto de Alfabetos y Ortografías'', 65. as well as

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

in the

Toledo District Toledo District is the southernmost district in Belize, and Punta Gorda is the District capital. It is the second most developed region in the country (according to the Human Development Index (HDI)). The district has a diverse topography whic ...

of Belize.Mwakikagile, ''Belize and Its People'', 114.

Grammar

Word order

The word order in Mopan is verb-object-subject (VOS),Mopan Maya
at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013). although subject-verb-object (SVO) is also common.Hofling, ''Mopan Maya-Spanish-English Dictionary'', 20.

Noun classifiers

Mopan has two noun classifiers that are used to indicate gender. However, use of these classifiers is not typical of

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

. The two classifiers are ''ix'' (feminine) and ''aj'' (masculine), for example, ''aj much'', meaning "toad (masculine)". Use of these gender markers is atypical in several respects: * They are not used for most nouns. * Gender is marked only in the noun and does not require agreement elsewhere in the sentence. * Gender marking can sometimes be omitted. Although the gender markers normally match the

natural gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

of the referent when denoting people, this is not always the case for non-human referents. For example, "parrot" (''ix tʼutʼ'') is typically feminine regardless of the sex of the animal.

Numerals and numeral classifiers

Numerals in Mopan always include a numeral classifier which is added as a suffix. These classifiers indicate qualities about the referent. For example, round objects are indicated by the suffix ''-kuul'', while long, thin objects are indicated by the suffix ''-tzʼiit''. The most commonly used numeral classifiers are ''-pʼeel'', for inanimate objects, and ''-tuul'', for people and animals. In all, there are over 70 numeral classifiers used in Mopan Maya.Hofling, ''Mopan Maya-Spanish-English Dictionary'', 25.

Phonology

Consonants

The following are the consonant sounds used by the Mopan Maya language (written with the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

):Hofling, ''Mopan Maya-Spanish-English Dictionary'', 3–5. In addition, some sources list (the

velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for '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 ''Englis ...

) as a consonant sound in Mopan Maya.Dienhart, ''The Mayan Languages'', 171.

Vowels

The following are the vowel sounds of the Mopan Maya language:

Orthography

Since the colonial period, Mopan Maya has been written with the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

. Historically, a wide range of orthographies have been used to represent the language, although recently, the orthography has been standardized by the

Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages 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 ...

(ALMG). The following table shows some of the orthographies that have been used to represent Mopan Maya:

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

Mopán Maya New Testament 2004 Edition
(archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mopan Language Agglutinative languages Mayan languages Indigenous languages of Central America Mesoamerican languages Languages of Belize Toledo District Languages of Guatemala Petén Department