Tojolabʼal language
| Tojolabal | |
|---|---|
| Tojolꞌabꞌal | |
| Native to | Mexico |
| Region | Southeast Chiapas |
| Ethnicity | Tojolabal |
Native speakers | 67,000 (2020 census)[1] |
Mayan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | toj |
| Glottolog | tojo1241 |
Tojolabal is a Mayan language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico. It is related to the Chuj language spoken in Guatemala. Tojolabal is spoken, principally in the departments of the Chiapanecan Colonia of Las Margaritas, by about 70,000 people.[1]
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, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, and Chuj—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-Whorf hypothesis.
Tojolabʼal-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XEVFS, broadcasting from Las Margaritas.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | ts | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| ejective | tʼ | tsʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | |||
| implosive | ɓ | ||||||
| Fricative | s | ʃ | h | ||||
| Tap | ɾ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||
- [ɾ] is mostly heard from Spanish loanwords.[2]
- Voiced stop sounds [b, d, ɡ] are also heard from Spanish loanwords.[3]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | o oː | |
| Open | a aː |
References
- ^ a b Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
- ^ del Prado, Alejandro Curiel Ramírez (2017). Tojolabal. Judith Aissen, Nora C. England, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado, The Mayan Languages: Routledge: London and New York. pp. 570–609.
- ^ Douglass, Celia M.; Supple, Julia (1949). Tojolabal (Mayan): Phonemes and verb morphology. International Journal of American Linguistics 15: University of Chicago Press. pp. 168–74.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
- Lenkersdorf, Carlos (1996). Los hombres verdaderos. Voces y testimonios tojolabales. Lengua y sociedad, naturaleza cite y cultura, artes y comunidad cósmica. Mexico City: Siglo XXI. ISBN 968-23-1998-6.
External links
- Tojolabʼal Collection of Jill Brody at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, including audio recordings. Access is restricted but available to researchers by request.