Chuj is a

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 ...

spoken by around 40,000 members of the

Chuj people The Chuj or Chuh are a Maya people, whose homeland is in Guatemala and Mexico. Population estimates vary between 30,000 and over 60,000. Their indigenous language is also called Chuj and belongs to the Q'anjobalan branch of Mayan languages. Most ...

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 Hon ...

and around 3,000 members in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. Chuj is a member of the Qʼanjobʼalan branch along with the languages of Tojolabʼal, Qʼanjobʼal, Akateko, Poptiʼ, and Mochoʼ which, together with the Chʼolan branch, Chuj forms the Western branch of the Mayan family. The Chujean branch emerged approximately 2,000 years ago. In Guatemala, Chuj speakers mainly reside in the municipalities of

San Mateo Ixtatán San Mateo Ixtatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is situated at above sea level in the Cuchumatanes mountain range and covers of terrain. It has a cold climate and is located in a cloud forest. The temper ...

, San Sebastián Coatán and Nentón in the Huehuetenango Department. Some communities in Barillas and Ixcán also speak Chuj. The two main dialects of Chuj are the San Mateo Ixtatán dialect and the San Sebastián Coatán dialect. The Chuj language has been influenced by Spanish, and Chuj speakers have a tendency to borrow

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

words or code-mix. It is estimated that 70% of the Chuj language is purely Chuj. There are language conservation and revitalization efforts taking place in San Mateo Ixtatán, through groups like the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala.

Phonology

Phonemic Inventory

Orthography

The letter 'h' is conventionally used in words with initial vowels to distinguish them from words that begin with a glottal stop.

Grammar

Verb stem morphology

Below is a template for the verbal stem in Chuj. Verbal predicates in Chuj appear with a status suffix: -a with transitive verbs and –i with intransitive verbs. Finite clauses inflect for Tense- Aspect,

person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

, and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...

Non-verbal predicates

Non-verbal predicates are non-verbal words like adjectives, nouns, positionals, or directionals that act as the main predicate and are semantically

stative According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are ...

. These constructions do not inflect for Tense-Aspect, but do inflect for person and number. There is no overt copula in Chuj and copula constructions are expressed through non-verbal predicates.

Person-markers

Chuj is an ergative-absolutive language. The subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are both cross-referenced with an absolutive marker, which appears in the verbal stem. The subject of a transitive verb is cross-referenced with an ergative marker in the verbal stem.

Tense-Aspect

Chuj has four attested Tense- Aspect markers. Finite clauses inflect obligatorily for Tense-Aspect.

Nominal classifiers

Chuj nominal classifiers represent a closed class of approximately a dozen words. They specify gender for humans, and the base material for objects, such as wood (teʼ) for houses and metal (kʼen) for knives. Chuj nominal classifiers have two main functions: they act as

articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...

for referential nouns, and as

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...

s. They have a lexical origin, but have undergone semantic bleaching and may therefore refer to a larger semantic field than the nominals that they are derived from. ; Articles for referential nouns ; Pronouns

Numbers 1 through 10 in Chuj

A tongue twister in Chuj from San Sebastián Coatán

''Nokʼ Xankatat yetʼ nokʼxeʼenYumal Skuychaj Tiʼ Chuj, ALMG, 2006, p.197'' ''Xenhxni xekxni xanhxni hinbʼeyi'' ''Xankatak xanhbʼ wekʼ a stixalu'' ''Xchi nokʼ xankat a nokʼ xeʼen,'' ''Xwila xwabi, xelabʼa to ojinwekla,'' ''to jinxekla manhx ojinwekla.''

Notes

References

* * * * * *

External links

Chuj – English Dictionary of the Chuj (Mayan) Language, Hopkins, Nicholas A., 2012Chuj Talking Dictionary, 2014. Chuj Talking Dictionary. K’ulb’il Yol Twitz Paxil / The Academy of Mayan Languages, Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.Academia de las Lenguas Mayas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chuj Language Mayan languages Agglutinative languages Indigenous languages of Central America Indigenous languages of Mexico Languages of Guatemala Huehuetenango Department Mesoamerican languages Verb–object–subject languages