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Chuj Language

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The Chuj language is spoken in Guatemala, Mexico. It is an endangered language spoken by roughly 38,253 people of the Huehuetenango villages. Chuj is one of the many Mayan languages and falls under the Q'anjob'alan-Chujean branch. There are two main dialects under the Chuj language: the San Mateo Ixtatán dialect and the San Sebastián Coatán dialect. Both dialects have specific grammar and sentence structures.[1] The Chuj Language has a large collection of grammar construction and word bank that was used by the people who spoke it frequently. After years of research, there have been compilations of word study and sentence structure in the Chuj Language. Chuj is one of the endangered languages branched from Mayan culture. The research done on specific grammar study, sentence structure and words show the importance given to the language as well as the actions taken to keep the language from going extinct.

Chuj
Chuh, Chuhe, Chuj de San Mateo Ixtatán, Chuje[2]
RegionNorthern Huehuetenango, Chiapas
EthnicityChuj
Native speakers
(42,000[3] cited 1991–2000)[4]
Dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-3cac
Glottologchuj1250


Geographic Distribution and History

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Main location of Chuj speakers: Guatemala, Mexico.

[5]The Chuj live in a region that includes parts of western Guatemala and eastern Chiapas, Mexico. They maintain strong ties despite the border, drawn in the 1800s, and the effects of the civil war in Guatemala which forced many Guatemalan Chuj to flee to Mexico and live as refugees in the 1980s and 90s. There are about 6,000 survivors of Chuj speakers living in 36 settlements in the area of Tziscao. This is the largest Chuj community in Mexico.[6] After the civil war in Guatemala many original Chuj speakers were killed and the ones that fled got accustomed to the language of the regions they moved to. Thus, the few that remain and still speak Chuj become the leftover population of endangered language. The civil war marks the beginning of Chuj becoming an endangered language.

Classification

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Chuj Language has its roots back to the parent Proto-Mayan language. Proto-Mayan language was later subdivided into specific branches- Western, Eastern etc. Chuj is part of the Q'anjobalan subdivision of the western branch. Chuj emerged from the further subdivided Q'anjob'alan Chujean branch. Chuj is one of thirty-one Mayan languages, which are divided into five subgroups by Campbell and Kaufman (1985) as follows (where a semicolon represents a division in the subgroup, an asterisk denotes an extinct language):[7]

  1. Huastecan: Huastec and Chicomuceltec*.
  2. Yucatecan: Yucatec, Lacandon; Mopan, Itza.
  3. Cholan-Tseltalan (or Greater Tseltalan):
  4. Cholan: Chol, Chontal; Ch’orti’, Choltí*;
  5. Tseltalan: Tseltal, Tzotzil.
  6. Q’anjob’alan-Chujean (or Greater Q’anjob’alan):
  7. Q’anjob’alan: Q’anjob’al, Akatek, Jakaltek; Motocintlec;
  8. Chujean: Chuj , Tojol’ab’al.
  9. K’ichean–Mamean (or Eastern Mayan):
  10. K’ichean: Q’eqchi’; Uspantek; Poqomchi’, Poqomam; K’ichee’, Kaqchikel,
  11. Tz’utujil, Sakapultek, Sipakapense;
  12. Mamean: Teco, Mam; Awakatek, Ixil.

Outside of the thirty-one languages listed above, the Mayan family has no known genetic affiliations. Chuj belongs to the Greater Q’anjob’alan branch of the family. Its closest relative is thought to be Tojol’ab’al, but this is somewhat controversial, as some have grouped the latter under Tseltalan according to Campbell and Kaufman (1985).

Official/Current Status

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Chuj is currently spoken (major) in western Guatemala and eastern Chiapas, Mexico. Chuj people are very aware of their heritage and history, they have made efforts in keeping the language alive. The Maya Educational Foundation[8] has offered help to Chuj speaking refugees that fled during the civil war. "Most of the Chuj refugees from Guatemala are now Mexican citizens, but the Mexican government continues to deny the Chuj, both those born in Mexico and those naturalized later, their own cultural heritage. They are forced to live in confined communities with little land for farming in a region where there are few other job opportunities. The few government-built schools do not offer any intercultural education and they are located far away so that most students walk an hour or two each way, a grave safety concern, especially for girls."[9] This foundation is helping the Chuj heritage stay alive by educating people from the chuj culture and providing aid to keep their traditions moving forward. Their main goal is to avoid letting the history and heritage of Chuj people vanish in the future generations by keeping the Chuj identity intact.

Sounds/Phonology

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Phonology present in Chuj Language (consonants, vowels, orthology)-

Chuj Consonants[10]

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Chuj consonants
Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plain Implosive Plain Ejective Plain Ejective Plain Ejective Plain Ejective Plain Plain
Oral stops p ɓ t tʼ k kʼ ʔ
Oral stops v
Fricative s ʃ χ
Affricates t͡s t͡s' t͡ʃ t͡ʃʼ
Nasals m n ŋ
Liquids l   r
Glides j

Chuj Vowels[11]

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Chuj vowels
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

Orthography [12][13]

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Orthography IPA Example Translation
a /a/ atz'am salt
b' /ɓ/ b'eyi to walk
ch /t͡ʃ/ chich rabbit
ch' /t͡ʃʼ/ ch'al thread
e /e/ ewi yesterday
i /i/ ix woman
j /χ/ jun one
k /k/ kukay firefly
k' /k'/ k'atzitz firewood
l /l/ lolonel word
m /m/ much bird
n /n/ nun parent
nh /ŋ/ nhab' rain
o /o/ ok' foot
p /p/ pat house
r /r/ retet woodpecker
s /s/ sak white

Grammar

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The Chuj Language grammar patterns essential to understand are mentioned below. Sentence structures used and some word sets are also listed. These essentials are collected from many years of research done by scholars interested in this endangered language.

Noun Classifiers

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Noun Classifiers[14] in Chuj and other related Mayan languages have sets of words that present essentially the same meaning. They are classified based on the essential nature of the object or being and function syntactically as pronouns and articles, similar to gender pronouns and articles in languages like Spanish[15] Here's a few noun classifiers-

  1. (winh) Male humans and personified animals (in folktales), day names and major illnesses.
  2. ('ix) Female humans and personified animals.
  3. (nok') Animals and animal products.
  4. (te') Trees and wood products.
  5. ('ixim) Maize, wheat, other grains, and their products.
  6. (ch'anh) Vines and their products.
  7. ('anh) Herbaceous plants (plants other than trees, vines and grains, but including mushrooms and their products; also, the fruits and other edible parts of plants.
  8. (lum) Earth and earthen products (including ceramics).
  9. (k'en) Stone and metal, and lithic and metallic products.
  10. (ha') Water and other liquids, including rivers, streams, lakes, etc.
  11. (k'apak) Cloth and cloth products.
  12. ('atz'am) Salt and salt products.
  13. (k'inal) Rains and weather phenomena.
  14. (yap'il) Illnesses (but some are classified as (winh).
  15. (nayleh) Sheet plastic and its products.


Person Markers[16]

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An important virtue of several Mayan languages including Chuj is that it has ergativity in grammar. Chuj is an ergative-absolutive language that presents a format where the subject of the sentence acts as the object and separate from its transitive verb. Here are the person markers present in Chuj:

Ergative Absolutive
Consonantal/Vocalic
1 SG(1 person) hin-/w/ hin-
2 SG a-/h- ach-
3 SG s-/y-
1 PL ko-/k- onh-
2 PL e-/ey- ex-
3 PL s-/y- (+heb')

Sentence Structures

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As mentioned above, Chuj being a ergative-absolutive language it follows a transitivity with verbs. Thus, creating pre-dominantly a VSO word order: Verb-Subject-Object. Other word orders also exist:

Word Order Structure[17]
VOS Canonical Structure
VSO Canonical Structure
SVO Subject(topic)-Verb(focus)-Object
OVS Object(topic)-Verb(focus)-Subject
SOV Subject(topic)-Object(focus)-Verb

Some examples of possible word structures can be shown through possible sentences translated from Chuj. The translation however only shows grammatical mechanisms and does not add the dialect and possible ways it is said in the Chuj Culture itself.

Examples

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1)Niwan keneyah ix-ø-ko-man-a’ Many banana PRFV-B3P-A1P-buy-TV ‘We bought a lot of bananas.’

2) Ix-in-b’ey-i’ PRFV-B1S-walk-ITV ‘I walked.’

3) Ix-ø-in-man ixim ixim. PRFV-B3S-A1S-buy CLF.GRAIN corn ‘I bought corn.’[18]

4) Ix-ach- ko -chel-a’. PRFV-B2-A1P-hug-TV ‘We hugged you.’

5) Ix-ach-b’ey-i. PRFV-B2-walk-ITV ‘You walked.’[19]

Nominal Roots and Relation to Spanish

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Chuj language has certain components of Spanish in it. Due to the regional similarity, a comparison between Chuj and Spanish is possible. When using intransitives in sentence structure, certain Spanish words get incorporated into the language as nominal roots. Verbs borrowed from Spanish—for example karrel from the Spanish infinitive form correr, enter Chuj as nominals. Under the agentive intransitives in Chuj, nominal roots given in the table below fall under the Unergative verb category.[20]

chanhal dance
at'is sneeze
patan cleared land
tz'ib' letters, writing
karrel run
paxeal stroll

Chuj Word Set[21]

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English Chuj Words
One Ju'un
Two Cha'ab'
Three Oxe'
Man Winak
Woman 'Ix

Some Chuj Animal Words[22]

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Animal name(English) Animal name(Chuj)
Dog tz'i'
Rat cho
Fish chay
Rabbit tzich
Snake kan
Bird much
Fox okes
Monkey maxtin

Some Chuj Color Translations[23]

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Color (English) Color (Chuj)
Black k'ik
White sak
Red chak
Yellow k'an
Blue ya'ax
Green ya'ax

Chuj Numbers from 1 to 10

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Numbers Numbers(Chuj)[24]
One jun
Two cha'ab'
Three oxe'
Four chanhe'
Five ho'e'
Six wake'
Seven huke'
Eight wajxke'
Nine b'alnhe'
Ten lajnhe'

Bibliography

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  • Hopkins, N. A. (2012). A dictionary of the Chuj (Mayan) language.
  • Hou, L. (2013). Agent focus in Chuj reflexive constructions (Doctoral dissertation, MCGILL UNIVERSITY).
  • Kotek, H., & Erlewine, M. Y. (2015). Non-interrogative wh-constructions in Chuj. Unpublished Manuscript.
  • Carolan, E., & Coon, J. (2015, January). Negation in Chuj progressives. In annual meeting of SSILA. Portland, OR.
  • Bennett, R., Coon, J., & Henderson, R. (2015). Introduction to Mayan Linguistics. Language and Linguistics Compass.
  • Carolan, E. (2016, May). An exploration of tense in Chuj. In ScriptUM: la revue du colloque VocUM (No. 1).
  • COON, J. Unergatives, antipassives, and roots in Chuj.
  • Bielig, L. (2015). Classifiers and constraints in Chuj topic constructions. Manuscript, McGill University.

References

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  1. ^ http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/3467
  2. ^ http://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/cac/
  3. ^ http://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/cac/
  4. ^ Chuj at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  5. ^ http://mayaedufound.org/Chuj-Scholarships.php
  6. ^ http://mayaedufound.org/Chuj-Scholarships.php
  7. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Hou-2011-Agent-Focus-in-Chuj-Reflexive-constructions.pdf
  8. ^ http://mayaedufound.org/Chuj-Scholarships.php
  9. ^ http://mayaedufound.org/Chuj-Scholarships.php
  10. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Hou-2011-Agent-Focus-in-Chuj-Reflexive-constructions.pdf
  11. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Hou-2011-Agent-Focus-in-Chuj-Reflexive-constructions.pdf
  12. ^ Stzolalil Sloloni-Spaxtini Heb' Chuj, ALMG, 2007, p. 66
  13. ^ Hopkins, Nicholas A. (2012). A dictionary of the Chuj (Mayan) language. Florida: Jaguar Tours.
  14. ^ http://mayaglot.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ChujEnglishDictionary2012.pdf
  15. ^ http://mayaglot.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ChujEnglishDictionary2012.pdf
  16. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bielig-2015-Chuj-classifier-constructions.pdf
  17. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bielig-2015-Chuj-classifier-constructions.pdf
  18. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bielig-2015-Chuj-classifier-constructions.pdf
  19. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ChujRoots.pdf
  20. ^ http://jessica.lingspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ChujRoots.pdf
  21. ^ http://www.native-languages.org/chuj_words.htm
  22. ^ http://www.native-languages.org/chuj_animals.htm
  23. ^ http://www.native-languages.org/chuj_colors.htm
  24. ^ http://www.native-languages.org/numbers/chuj_numbers.htm
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