| Q’eqchi’ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kekchi | ||||
| Spoken in | Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, El Salvador | |||
| Region | Alta Verapaz, Petén, Izabal, Baja Verapaz, El Quiché; Toledo | |||
| Ethnicity | Q'eqchi' | |||
| Native speakers | 400,000 in Guatemala (1998) 11,200 in Belize (2006) 12,300 in El Salvador (undated) (date missing) |
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| Language family |
Mayan
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| Writing system | Latin | |||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in | None Considered a national language of Guatemala[1] and Mexico[2] |
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| Regulated by | Academía de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | kek | |||
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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.
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Below is the Q'eqchi' phonology, with orthography (ALMG) in parentheses.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Alveo-affricate | Alveo-palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | m (m) | n (n) | ||||||
| Fricative | s (s) | ʃ (x) | x (j) | |||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ (r) | |||||||
| Lateral | l (l) | |||||||
| Semivowel | w (w) | j (y) | ||||||
| (loans from Spanish) | b (b) | d (d) | ɡ (g) |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | o oː | |
| Open | a aː |
With a few exceptions—interjections, such as uyaluy, mainly (Kockelman 2003)—stress always falls on the final syllable (Stewart 1980).
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.[3] 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 Guatemala (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').[4]
In the current orthography there are 33 graphemes (letters), each of which is meant to correspond to a particular phoneme. These include separate vowels for long and short sounds, as well as glottal stops accompanying certain consonants.
| ALMG | 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. |
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.[5]
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.
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