Ch'orti' language

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Ch'orti'
Ch'orti'
Spoken in: Guatemala, Honduras 
Region: Copán
Total speakers: approx. 20,000
Language family: Mayan
 Cholan-Tzeltalan
  Cholan
   Chorti
    Ch'orti'
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: myn
ISO 639-3: caa

The Ch'orti' language (sometimes also Chorti) is a Mayan language, spoken by the indigenous Maya people who are also known as the Ch'orti' or Ch'orti' Maya. Ch'orti' is a direct descendant of the Classic Maya language in which many of the pre-Columbian inscriptions using the Maya script were written. This Classic Maya language is also attested in a number of inscriptions made in regions whose inhabitants most likely spoke a different Mayan language variant, including the ancestor of Yukatek Maya.

Ch'orti' is spoken mainly in Guatemala, and it is also indigenous to the adjacent areas of Honduras, where it is nearly extinct.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Houston, SD, J. Robertson, and DS Stuart, The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions, Current Anthropology 41:321-356 (2000).
  • Hull, Kerry M. (2003). Verbal art and performance in Ch'orti' and Maya hieroglyphic writing [electronic resource]. Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin. Available electronically from http://hdl.handle.net/2152/1240