Q'eqchi
Encyclopedia
The Q'eqchi' language, also spelled Kekchi, is one of the Mayan languages
, natively spoken within Q'eqchi'
communities in Guatemala
and Belize
. In Guatemala, Q'eqchi' is spoken in the departments of Alta Verapaz
, Petén
, Izabal
, Baja Verapaz
, and El Quiché
. Several Maya
communities in the Toledo District
of Belize use this language as their first language, and the majority of Mayas in Toledo speak Q'eqchi'.
Q'eqchi' has traditionally been described as having two dialects — one spoken in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, and the surrounding areas; and an "eastern" dialect spoken everywhere else.
s, such as uyaluy, mainly (Kockelman 2003)—stress
always falls on the final syllable (Stewart 1980).
(ALMG), and is now considered the standard, official way to write Q'eqchi' (at least in Guatemala).
Before Sedat and Eachus & Carlson developed the SIL othography, field researchers attempted to piece together their own form of writing Q'eqchi' (as was done for many other "exotic" languages). For example, Robert Burkitt, in his 1902 paper "Notes on the Kekchí Language," developed a means of transcription very different from the current standards (as a matter of fact, he was one of the first field linguists to work with the orthography of Q'eqchi').
In the current orthography there are 33 graphemes (letters), each of which is meant to correspond to a particular phoneme
. These include separate vowel
s for long and short sounds, as well as glottal stops accompanying certain consonants.
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
, natively spoken within Q'eqchi'
Q'eqchi' people
Q'eqchi are one of the Maya peoples in Guatemala and Belize, whose indigenous language is also called Q'eqchi'....
communities in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
. In Guatemala, Q'eqchi' is spoken in the departments of Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and Baja Verapaz, and to the west by El Quiché.Also in Alta Verapaz...
, Petén
Petén (department)
Petén is a department of the nation of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest in size — at it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores...
, Izabal
Izabal (department)
Izabal is one of the 22 departments of Guatemala. Its coastal areas form part of the homeland of the Garifuna people.Izabal is bordered to the north by Belize, to the north east by the Gulf of Honduras, and to the east by Honduras, and by the Guatemalan departments of Petén to the north west,...
, Baja Verapaz
Baja Verapaz
Baja Verapaz is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá.Baja Verapaz houses the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplendent Quetzal....
, and El Quiché
Quiché (department)
El Quiché is a department of Guatemala.El Quiché department is in the heartland of the Quiché people, to the north-west of Guatemala City. The capital is Santa Cruz del Quiché.-Population:...
. Several Maya
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
communities in the Toledo District
Toledo District
Toledo District is the southernmost district in Belize, and Punta Gorda the District capital. Although the least developed region in the country, it features some of the most pristine rainforests, extensive cave networks, coastal lowland plains, and offshore cays...
of Belize use this language as their first language, and the majority of Mayas in Toledo speak Q'eqchi'.
Q'eqchi' has traditionally been described as having two dialects — one spoken in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, and the surrounding areas; and an "eastern" dialect spoken everywhere else.
Consonants
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... | Post-alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... | Alveo-affricate | Alveo-palatal | Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... | Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... | Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p ɓ (p b') | t tʼ (t t') | ts tsʼ (tz tz') | tʃ tʃʼ (ch ch') | k kʼ (k k') | q qʼ (q q') | ʔ (') | |
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m (m) | n (n) | ||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
s (s) | ʃ (x) | x (j) | |||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ (r) | |||||||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l (l) | |||||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
w (w) | j (y) | ||||||
| (loans from Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... ) |
b (b) | d (d) | ɡ (g) |
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i iː | u uː | |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e eː | o oː | |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a aː |
Prosody
With a few exceptions—interjectionInterjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s, such as uyaluy, mainly (Kockelman 2003)—stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
always falls on the final syllable (Stewart 1980).
Orthographies
There are several orthographies for writing Q'eqchi', but only two are in widespread use. One was developed by Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) field researchers, principally Guillermo Sedat in the 1950s and Francis Eachus and Ruth Carlson in the 1960s. Though this orthography is no longer considered standard, it remains in circulation in large part due to the popularity of a few texts including the Protestant Bible produced by the SIL/Wycliffe Bible Translation Project, and a widely-used language learning workbook "Aprendamos Kekchi." A newer orthography was developed by the Proyecto Lingüistico Francisco Marroquin in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This orthograhy was later modified by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de GuatemalaAcademia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 21 Mayan languages spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended particular efforts on standardising the various writing systems used...
(ALMG), and is now considered the standard, official way to write Q'eqchi' (at least in Guatemala).
Before Sedat and Eachus & Carlson developed the SIL othography, field researchers attempted to piece together their own form of writing Q'eqchi' (as was done for many other "exotic" languages). For example, Robert Burkitt, in his 1902 paper "Notes on the Kekchí Language," developed a means of transcription very different from the current standards (as a matter of fact, he was one of the first field linguists to work with the orthography of Q'eqchi').
In the current orthography there are 33 graphemes (letters), each of which is meant to correspond to a particular phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
. These include separate vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s for long and short sounds, as well as glottal stops accompanying certain consonants.
| ALMG Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 21 Mayan languages spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended particular efforts on standardising the various writing systems used... | SIL | English translation |
|---|---|---|
| maak'a ta chink'ul sa' laa muheb'al aaki'chebal | maac'a ta chinc'ul sa' laa muhebal aaqui'chebaal | May nothing happen to me in your shady places and your forests. |
| yo chi amaq'ink laj Kachil Petén | yo chi amak'inc laj Cachil Petén | Carlos lives (is living) in Petén. |
History
At the time of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Q'eqchi' was probably spoken by fewer people than neighboring languages such as Itza', Mopan, and Cholti', all of which are now moribund or extinct. The main evidence for this fact is not colonial documents, but the prevalence of loan words apparently stemming from these languages in Q'eqchi'. However, a number of factors made Q'eqchi' do better than the just-mentioned languages. One is the difficult mountainous terrain which is its home. Another is that, rather than simply being conquered, as the Cholti', or resisting conquest for an extended period, as the Itza' did for over 200 years, the Q'eqchi' came to a particular arrangement with the Spaniards, by which Dominican priests, led initially by Fray Bartolome de las Casas, were allowed to enter their territory and proselytize undisturbed, whereas no lay Spaniards were admitted. This led to their territory being renamed "Verapaz" (true peace) by the Spaniards, a name which continues today in the Guatemalan departments Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz. This relatively favorable early development allowed the people to spread, and even make war on neighboring Mayan groups. Although it was later followed by the brutal policies of the late-19th-century liberals and the late-20th century military governments, it largely explains the status of Q'eqchi' as the 3rd largest Mayan language in Guatemala and the 4th across the Mayan region. The relatively recent, postcolonial expansion is also the reason that Q'eqchi' is perhaps the most homogeneous of the larger Mayan languages.Texts
Like most other Mayan languages, Q'eqchi' is still in the process of becoming a written and literary language. Existing texts can roughly be divided into the following categories.- Educational texts meant to teach people how to speak, read or write Q'eqchi'. This category includes materials such as dictionaries and grammars, as well as workbooks designed to be used in rural Guatemala schools in communities where the majority of the people are native speakers of Q'eqchi'.
- Religious texts. The Protestant version of the Bible (published by the SIL based on the work of Guillermo Sedat, and Eachus and Carlson) mentioned above is probably the most widely available text in Q'eqchi'. In the last twenty years or so, the Roman Catholic Church has been one of the primary proponents of written Q'eqchi'. Various Catholic organizations are responsible for producing a number of texts, including the New Testament, Genesis and Exodus, and various instructional pamphlets. A songbook entitled Qanimaaq Xloq'al li Qaawa 'We praise the Lord' is very popular among Catholics, has been in print for many years, and is updated with new songs regularly. The Book of MormonBook of MormonThe Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement that adherents believe contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2600 BC to AD 421. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr...
also is available in Q'eqchi' as are also other LDS religious texts. - Non-instructive secular texts have also begun to appear in the last ten years or so, although they are still few in number. The most ambitious of these works have been a free translation of the K'iche' text Popol Wuj ("Popol Vuh") by the Q'eqchi' language teacher and translator Rigoberto Baq Qaal (or Ba'q Q'aal), and a collection of Q'eqchi' folk tales. A number of government documents have also been translated into Q'eqchi', including the Guatemalan Constitution.
External links
- entry
- Q'eqchi' Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Comparative Q'eqchi' Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary)