Tojolabal is a Mayan language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico. It is related to the Chuj language

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...

 spoken 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...

. Tojolabal is spoken especially in the departments of the Chiapanecan Colonia of Las Margaritas

Las Margaritas, Chiapas

Las Margaritas is a city, and the surrounding municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The municipal seat is located some 25 km to the northeast of Comitán de Domínguez, while the municipality extends to the east as far as the border with Guatemala...

 by about 20,000 people.

The name Tojolabal derives from the phrase [tohol aˈbal], 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

Tzotzil language

Tzotzil is a Maya language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. According to an INEGI 2005 census, there are 329,937 speakers of Tzotzil in Mexico, making it the 6th most spoken indigenous language in the country...

, Tzeltal

Tzeltal language

- External links :*...

, Tojolabal, and Chuj

Chuj

Chuj might refer to:* Chuj language, a Mayan language spoken in western Guatemala and southern Mexico* Chuj people, speakers of the Chuj language...

 -- 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-Worf hypothesis

Linguistic relativity

The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers are able to conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view...

.

Tojolab'al-language programming is carried by the CDI

National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples

The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was founded in 2003 as a replacement for the National Indigenist Institute . It has its headquarters in Mexico City and, since 15 December 2006, has been...

's radio station XEVFS, broadcasting from Las Margaritas.