Akatek language
Encyclopedia
Akatek is a Mayan language spoken by the Akatek people
primarily in the Huehuetenango Department, Guatemala
in and around the municipalities of Concepción Huista
, Nentón
, San Miguel Acatán
, San Rafael La Independencia
and San Sebastián Coatán
. A number of speakers also live in Chiapas
, Mexico
. It is a living language with 58,600 speakers as of 1998, of which 48,500 lived in Guatemala
and the remaining in Mexico
.
Akatek is closely related to the two Mayan languages, Q'anjob'al
and Jakaltek
. The three languages together form the Q'anjob'al-Jakaltek sub-branch, which together with the Mocho' language
form the Q'anjob'alan sub-branch, which again, together with the Chujean languages, Chuj
and Tojolab'al, form the branch Q'anjobalan–Chujean. It is believed that Q'anjob'al–Jakaltek split into Akatek, Q'anjob'al and Jakaltek some 500 to 1,500 years ago.
Akatek was regarded as a dialect of the Q'anjob'al language
until the 1970s, when linguists realized that it has a distinct grammar from that of Q'anjob'al. That it has been thought a dialect of Q'anjob'al is reflected in the many names Akatek has had through time. One of its primary names before it was named Akatek, was Western Q'anjob'al, but it has also been called Conob, and various names including Q'anjob'al and the municiplaity where it is spoken.
An interesting aspect of Akatek grammar
, which is also present in most other Q'anjobalan languages, is the use of directional morphemes
, which appear as enclitics. These morphemes make it possible for the speaker to talk about movement and direction in space without pointing or using other gestures. Consider the stative verb
[ʔej] to be, which can appear as [ʔejʔok] existing inwards, [ʔejtok] existing towards there, away from the speaker and listener and [ʔeːltox] exisiting from the inside out, using different enclitics.
s:
Vowel length
is distinctive, so one can say that the total number of vowels is 10.
s, including the glottal stop
:
/p/ is realized as [pʰ] word-finally, [p] everywhere else.
/k/ is realized as [kʰ] word-finally, [k] everywhere else.
/t/ is realized as [tʰ] before plosive consonants, [t] everywhere else.
/ɓ/ is realized as [ɓ̥] word-finally, [ɓ] everywhere else.
/x/ is realized as [h] word-initially, [x] everywhere else.
/n/ is realized as [m] before /p/ and /ɓ/, but [ŋ] before alveolar
and velar consonant
s, [n] everywhere else.
Akatek people
The Akatek are a Maya people in Guatemala. Their indigenous language, which is also called Akatek, belongs to the Q'anjobalan branch of Mayan languages. Most Akatek live in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia, in the department of Huehuetenango....
primarily in the Huehuetenango Department, 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...
in and around the municipalities of Concepción Huista
Concepción Huista
Concepción Huista is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango....
, Nentón
Nentón
Nentón is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Its territory extends 762.85 km2 and has 9,113 inhabitants. It became a municipality on December 5, 1876 and was formally known as San Benito Nentón...
, San Miguel Acatán
San Miguel Acatán
San Miguel Acatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. The Mayan language of Akateko is spoken here....
, San Rafael La Independencia
San Rafael La Independencia
San Rafael La Independencia is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango....
and San Sebastián Coatán
San Sebastián Coatán
San Sebastián Coatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Its territory extends 560 km2, is 2,350m above sea level and has a cooler climate. It has 18,022 inhabitants who speak Spanish and Chuj...
. A number of speakers also live in Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. It is a living language with 58,600 speakers as of 1998, of which 48,500 lived 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 the remaining in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Akatek is closely related to the two Mayan languages, Q'anjob'al
Q'anjob'al language
Q'anjob'al is a Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. According to 1998 estimates compiled by SIL International in Ethnologue, there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. Q'anjob'al is a member of the...
and Jakaltek
Jakaltek language
The Jakaltek language is a Mayan language of Guatemala spoken by around 90,000 Jakaltek people in the department of Huehuetenango and the adjoining part of Chiapas in southern Mexico...
. The three languages together form the Q'anjob'al-Jakaltek sub-branch, which together with the Mocho' language
Mocho' language
Mocho’ or Mototzintlec is a language belonging to the western branch of Mayan languages spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The two dialects of Mocho' are spoken in two different villages: the Tuzantec dialect in Tuzantán and the Motozintlec dialect in Mototzintla....
form the Q'anjob'alan sub-branch, which again, together with the Chujean languages, Chuj
Chuj language
Chuj is one of the Mayan languages spoken by around 40,000 people in Guatemala and 10,000 in Mexico. Chuj together with the languages of Tojolab'al, Mocho', Akateko, Q'anjob'al and Popti' form the western branch of the Mayan family of languages. Chuj created its own branch about 21 centuries ago...
and Tojolab'al, form the branch Q'anjobalan–Chujean. It is believed that Q'anjob'al–Jakaltek split into Akatek, Q'anjob'al and Jakaltek some 500 to 1,500 years ago.
Akatek was regarded as a dialect of the Q'anjob'al language
Q'anjob'al language
Q'anjob'al is a Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. According to 1998 estimates compiled by SIL International in Ethnologue, there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. Q'anjob'al is a member of the...
until the 1970s, when linguists realized that it has a distinct grammar from that of Q'anjob'al. That it has been thought a dialect of Q'anjob'al is reflected in the many names Akatek has had through time. One of its primary names before it was named Akatek, was Western Q'anjob'al, but it has also been called Conob, and various names including Q'anjob'al and the municiplaity where it is spoken.
An interesting aspect of Akatek grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, which is also present in most other Q'anjobalan languages, is the use of directional morphemes
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
, which appear as enclitics. These morphemes make it possible for the speaker to talk about movement and direction in space without pointing or using other gestures. Consider the stative verb
Stative verb
A stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...
[ʔej] to be, which can appear as [ʔejʔok] existing inwards, [ʔejtok] existing towards there, away from the speaker and listener and [ʔeːltox] exisiting from the inside out, using different enclitics.
Vowels
Akatek has 5 vowelVowel
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:
| 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... |
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... |
|
|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | |
| 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 | u |
| Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
e | o |
| 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 |
Vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
is distinctive, so one can say that the total number of vowels is 10.
Consonants
Akatek has 24 consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s, including the glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
:
| 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... |
Postalveolar 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... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex 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 consonants, especially in Indology... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
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 | Normal | p | t | k | ʔ | |||||
| Ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
tʼ | kʼ | qʼ | |||||||
| Implosive Implosive consonant Implosive consonants are stops with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can... |
ɓ | |||||||||
| 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 | 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... |
β̞ | s | ʃ | ʂ | x | |||||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
Normal | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ʈ͡ʂ | ||||||
| Ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
t͡sʼ | t͡ʃʼ | ʈ͡ʂʼ | |||||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
l | j | ||||||||
/p/ is realized as [pʰ] word-finally, [p] everywhere else.
- Examples: pom [pom] copal, xopan [ʃopan] hollow, sip [sipʰ] tick
/k/ is realized as [kʰ] word-finally, [k] everywhere else.
- Examples: kaap' [kaːɓ̥] two, mooke [moːke] tinaja, ch'ok [t͡ʃʼokʰ] zanate
/t/ is realized as [tʰ] before plosive consonants, [t] everywhere else.
- Examples: te' [teʔ] tree, satkan [satʰkan] sky, p'it [ɓit] song
/ɓ/ is realized as [ɓ̥] word-finally, [ɓ] everywhere else.
- Examples: kaap' [kaːɓ̥] two, p'ey'p'al [ɓejɓal] the walking (thing)
/x/ is realized as [h] word-initially, [x] everywhere else.
- Examples: xos [hos] egg, ajane [ʔaxane] foot
/n/ is realized as [m] before /p/ and /ɓ/, but [ŋ] before 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...
and velar consonant
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)....
s, [n] everywhere else.
- Examples: Examples: inp'it [imɓit] my song, ante [ʔaŋte] to cure, naa [naː] house