Tojol-ab'al 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 in

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, ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

by the

Tojolabal people The Tojolabal are a Maya people of the Mexican state of Chiapas. They traditionally speak the Tojolabal language. Population density The Tojolabal people are spread across the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Las Margaritas is believed to have the la ...

. Tojol-ab'al is spoken, principally in the departments of the Chiapanecan Colonia of Las Margaritas, by about 70,000 people. It is related to the

Chuj language Chuj is a Mayan language spoken by around 40,000 members of the Chuj people in Guatemala and around 3,000 members in Mexico. Chuj is a member of the Qʼanjobʼalan branch along with the languages of Tojolabʼal, Qʼanjobʼal, Akateko, Popt ...

. The name Tojolabal derives from the phrase , meaning "right language". Nineteenth-century documents sometimes refer to the language and its speakers as "Chaneabal" (meaning "four languages", possibly a reference to the four Mayan languages –

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 ...

, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, and

Chuj Chuj might refer to: * A component of Russian and Polish profanity * Chuj language, a Mayan language spoken in western Guatemala and southern Mexico * Chuj people The Chuj or Chuh are a Maya people, whose homeland is in Guatemala and Mexico. Popula ...

—spoken in the Chiapas highlands and nearby lowlands along the Guatemala border). Anthropologist Carlos Lenkersdorf has claimed several linguistic and cultural features of the Tojolabal, primarily the language's ergativity, show that they do not give cognitive weight to the distinctions subject/object, active/passive. This he interprets as being evidence in favor of the controversial

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people ...

. The official Writing Standard of the Tojol-ab’al Language (In Tojol-ab’al: ''Skujlayub'il Sts'ijb'ajel K'umal Tojol-ab'al'', Spanish: ''Norma de Escritura de la Lengua Tojol-ab’al'') was published in 2011 by the

Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (National Indigenous Languages Institute, better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de ...

, used for indigenous education. It established an official alphabet, grammar rules and other linguistic aspects. Tojol-abʼal-language programming is carried by the

National Institute of Indigenous Peoples The National Institute of Indigenous Peoples ( es, Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas, INPI) is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was established on December 4, 2018, though the earliest Mexican g ...

radio station

XEVFS XEVFS-AM (''La Voz de la Frontera Sur'' – "The Voice of the Southern Border") is an indigenous community radio station that broadcasts in Spanish, Tojolabal, Mam, Tseltal, Tsotsil and Popti (otherwise known as Jakaltek) from Las Margar ...

, broadcasting from Las Margaritas.

Alphabet

According to the Writing Standard, the alphabet in Tojol-ab’al is oficially known as ''Tsome sat ts'ijb'anel'' (sign set), it’s is integrated by 28 letters, 23 consonants and 5 vowels, the order and their denomination in Tojol-ab’al are the following:

Phonology

Consonants

* [] is mostly heard from Spanish loanwords. * Voiced stop sounds [, , ] are also heard from Spanish loanwords.

Vowels

References

External links

Tojolabʼal Collection of Jill Brody
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 ...

, including audio recordings. Access is restricted but available to researchers by request. Mayan languages Mesoamerican languages Agglutinative languages Indigenous languages of Mexico {{indigenousAmerican-lang-stub Languages of Mexico