Qʼanjobʼal () (also Kanjobal) is a Mayan language from the Q'anjobalan branch spoken primarily in

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

and part of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. According to 1998 estimates compiled by

SIL International SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics International) is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, to expan ...

in ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'', there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. In

Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...

, Mexico, municipalities where the Qʼanjobʼal language is spoken include Catazajá, Amatenango de la Frontera, La Trinitaria, Bella Vista, Frontera Comalapa, Las Margaritas and Maravilla Tenejapa. In Huehuetenango, the municipalities where the language is spoken are San Juan Ixcoy (''Yich Kʼox''), San Pedro Soloma (''Tzʼulumaʼ ''), Santa Eulalia (''Jolom Konobʼ ''), Santa Cruz Barillas (''Yalmotx''), San Rafael La Independencia, and San Miguel Acatán (Pedro Mateo Pedro 2010). Qʼanjobʼal is taught in public schools through Guatemala's intercultural bilingual education programs.

Classification

Qʼanjobʼal is a member of the Qʼanjobʼalan branch of the Mayan language family. The Mayan language family includes 31 languages, two of which are now extinct. The Qʼanjobʼalan branch includes not only Qʼanjobʼal itself but also Chuj, Akatek, and Jakaltek, also spoken in Mexico and Guatemala. The Qʼanjobʼalan languages are noted for being among the most conservative of the Mayan language family, although they do include some interesting innovations.

Phonology

Qʼanjobʼal consists of 26 consonant sounds and 5 vowel sounds.

Stress

Primary stress in Qʼanjobʼal is fairly simple. Words in isolation and in final phrase boundaries bear stress on the last syllable. However, words within a phrasal unit (not in final phrase boundary) bear stress on their first syllable.

Orthography

The letters of the alphabet are as follows: The ʼ in chʼ, kʼ, qʼ, tʼ, txʼ, and tzʼ represents an ejective or glottalic egressive, i.e., the consonant is accompanied by a puff of air from the glottis. The letter ''r'' in Qʼanjobʼal has a limited distribution. It is used mostly in borrowings, primarily in words borrowed from Spanish, such as ''roxax'', rose, from Spanish ''rosa''. It is also used in affect and positional words like ''kʼarari'' 'noise of an old engine or the like', ''jeran'' 'to be in a broken position/form'. The letters ''tx'' and ''x'' represent

retroflex consonant A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

s, pronounced with the tongue curled backward in the mouth. It is believed such retroflection in Qʼanjobʼal is an influence from the Mamean Mayan languages.

Morphology and syntax

Verbs

As in all Mayan languages, Qʼanjobʼal classifies all

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

s as either inherently ''intransitive'' (calling up only one argument) or as inherently ''transitive'' (calling up two arguments). Qʼanjobʼal is an ergative–absolutive language, in which the subject of a

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose ...

takes an ergative affix, while the subject of an intransitive verb, as well as the

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an a ...

of a transitive verb, takes an absolutive affix. There are two sets of

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...

es for ergative: the first set is used for those verbal roots beginning with a consonant, and the second set is used for those beginning with a vowel. Ergative affixes are also used for possession. There is only one set of absolutive affixes with two variations: pronounced like free words or attached to something else. The third person absolutive affix is Ø, i.e., unmarked or empty. However, while verbs are classified as either ergative or absolutive and take their own respective sets of pronoun affixes, this rule is altered in certain cases, such as when a verb becomes progressive: but,

Aspect

In Qʼanjobʼal, aspect (whether an action has been completed or not) is more important than tense. Thus, in most utterances, one will indicate whether the action is incompletive, or whether it is completed, or may happen in the future, in which case it is considered 'unreal', or of

irrealis mood In linguistics, irrealis moods (abbreviated ) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contrasts with the realis moods. They a ...

, the event still only in the realm of thought or imagination.

Incompletive

''Ch(i)'' is used to indicate that an event is incomplete or ongoing at some time:

Completive

''Max'' or ''x-'' (both forms are used in free variation) are used to indicate that an event is complete:

Future/Irrealis

The prefix ''hoq-'' with the suffix ''-oq'' are used to indicate that the event spoken of has not yet happened, but remains only in the realm of the 'unreal' with only the potential for occurrence in the future:

Negative

Negative particles include ''kʼam'' and ''manaq'':

Interrogative

Questions can be formed simply by using rising intonation with declarative syntax: There is also a question particle, ''mi'': (Used as common form of greeting, like English 'How are you?')

Affixation

Many different affixes are used in Qʼanjobʼal, both prefixes and suffixes. Among these are aj-, used to denote the doer or leader of an action: ''ajtzʼibʼ'', ʼwriterʼ (< ''tzʼibʼ'' 'write'), ''ajbʼe'', 'spiritual guide' (< ''bʼe'' 'road'); ''-bʼal'', used to indicate the location where something happens: ''tzombʼal'' 'market' (< ''tzon'' 'buy'); ''-al'', ''-alil'', ''-il'', used to derive abstract nouns from adjectives, adverbs, numerals, transitive verb roots, and nouns: ''syalixhal'' 'his/her smallness' (< ''yalixh'' 'small'); ''swinaqil'' 'husband' (< ''winaq'' 'man'); ''-kʼulal'', to derive nouns from intransitive verbs, adjectives, other nouns, etc.: ''watxkʼulal'' 'friendliness'; ''-oj'', nominalizer, turning verbs into nouns: ''kuyoj'' 'studying' (< ''kuy'' 'study').

Word order

Qʼanjobʼal has a fixed

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

. It follows a verb–subject–object (VSO) word order. All changes to this word order are driven by pragmatic or syntactic factors like focus, negation, interrogation, relativization, etc. These are subject to an ergative–absolutive pattern where arguments cross-referenced by ergative affixes must become absolutives prior to their fronting (focus, negation, etc.). This results in some possible subject–verb (SV), object–verb–subject (OVS) orders. However SVO, SOV and OSV are not possible (or, at least, not attested in any known corpus). The apparent exception is in reflexives and reflexive possessives, where the reflexive phrase ERG-bʼa (noun) or reflexive possessive ERG-noun appears directly following the verb.

Classifiers

Some Qʼanjobʼal nouns require that certain classifiers be used with them. Among these are ''no (animals), ''te'' (trees/wood), ''ix'' (female), ''naq'' (male), ''chʼen'' (stone/metal), ''xim'' (corn), and ''an'' (plants).

Reduplication

Reduplication, or duplication of a root word, is a minor process in the formation of Qʼanjobʼal vocabulary, as in the following:

Vocabulary

Qʼanjobʼal consists of groups of

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

s that can take affixes. Words are traditionally classified as nouns,

adjectives An adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, ...

adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ans ...

, intransitive and transitive

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

s, and positionals. Positionals are a group of roots which cannot function as words on their own; in combination with affixes they are used to describe relationships of position and location. Particles are words that do not take affixes; they mostly function in adverbial roles, and include such things as interrogative particles, affirmative/negative words, markers of time and location, conjunctions,

preposition Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...

s and

demonstrative Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning ...

s. Locatives are often formed by placing a noun after a possessed body-part term: ''s-ti bʼe'', 'edge of the road' < 'its-mouth road' and ''s-jolom witz'', 'mountaintop' or 'summit' < 'its-head mountain'. Similarly, compound nouns may be formed by placing a noun after another possessed noun: ''y-atutal kuyoj'', 'school' < 'its-house studying'.

Numbers

* 1. jun * 2. kabʼ * 3. oxebʼ * 4. kanebʼ * 5. oyebʼ * 6. waqebʼ * 7. uqebʼ * 8. waxaqebʼ * 9. bʼalonebʼ * 10. lajonebʼ * 11. uslukʼebʼ * 12. kabʼlajonebʼ * 13. oxlajonebʼ * 14. kanlajonebʼ * 15. holajonebʼ * 16. waqlajonebʼ * 17. uqlajonebʼ * 18. waxaqlajonebʼ * 19. balonlajonebʼ * 20. junkʼal * 21. jun skakʼal * 22. kabʼ skakʼal * 23. oxebʼ skakʼal * 24. kanebʼ skakʼal * 25. oyeb skakʼal * 26. waqebʼ skakʼal * 27. uqebʼ skakʼal * 28. waxaqebʼ skakʼal * 29. bʼalonebʼ skakʼal * 30. lajonebʼ skakʼal * 31. uslukʼebʼ skakʼal * 32. kabʼlajonebʼ skakʼal * 33. oxlajunebʼ skakʼal * 34. kanlajonebʼ skakʼal * 35. holajonebʼ skakʼal * 36. waqlajonebʼ skakʼal * 37. uqlajonebʼ skakʼal * 38. waxaqlajonebʼ skakʼal * 39. balonlajunebʼ skakʼal * 40. kakʼal * 60. oxkʼal ''3x20'' * 80. kankʼal * 100. okʼal * 120. waqkʼal * 140. uqkʼal * 160. waxaqkʼal * 180. balonlajonkʼal * 200. lajunkʼal * 400. junkʼalwinaq * 800. kakʼalwinaq * 2000. okʼalwinaq

Common words

Abbreviations used

ABS abstractivizer
CL classifier
COM complete
INC incomplete
INT interrogative
IRR irrealis
NEG negative
NZR nominalizer
PL plural
PROG progressive
SFX suffix
STAT status

Notes

References

* * * *Lichtman, Karen (2010)
''IPA illustration of Q’anjob’al''
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. *Mateo Pedro, Pedro (2010). ''The acquisition of verb inflection in Qʼanjobʼal Maya: a longitudinal study''. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas. *

External links

community/sub-committee for Qʼanjobʼal at Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala LMG* ELAR archive o
Qʼanjobʼal (Maya)
{{Mayan languages Agglutinative languages Languages of Guatemala Huehuetenango Department Mayan languages Mesoamerican languages Articles citing INALI Verb–object–subject languages Indigenous languages of Mexico Languages of Mexico