Itzaʼ language

Itzaʼ (also known as Itza or Itzaj) is an endangered Mayan language spoken by the Itza people near Lake Peten Itza in north-central Guatemala and neighboring Belize. The language has less than 40 fluent speakers, all older adults. Itzaʼ was the language of administration across much of the Yucatán Peninsula during the supremacy of Chichen Itza. Later, the Itza people had the last independent Maya nation in Mesoamerica until 1697. During this time, the Itza people resettled their ancestral home in the Petén Basin. The subjugation of the Itza capital by the Spanish forced the Itza people to flee or live amongst the Spaniards, such as in San Jose, Guatemala, where the only modern speakers of the language live. The modern Itza people are the last of the Lowland Maya to be able to directly trace their heritage back to the pre-Columbian era. The Itzaʼ language reflects this history in its nomenclature for the natural world: Itzaʼ words referring to agriculture and agricultural practices remain unchanged since first being recorded. Additionally, Itzaʼ possesses a rich vocabulary for crops and animals that encodes specific information about different varietals and individuals of the species.

Itzaʼ (also known as Itza or Itzaj) is an endangered Mayan language spoken by the Itza people near Lake Peten Itza in north-central Guatemala and neighboring Belize. The language has less than 40 fluent speakers, all older adults. Itzaʼ was the language of administration across much of the Yucatán Peninsula during the supremacy of Chichen Itza. Later, the Itza people had the last independent Maya nation in Mesoamerica until 1697. During this time, the Itza people resettled their ancestral home in the Petén Basin. The subjugation of the Itza capital by the Spanish forced the Itza people to flee or live amongst the Spaniards, such as in San Jose, Guatemala, where the only modern speakers of the language live. The modern Itza people are the last of the Lowland Maya to be able to directly trace their heritage back to the pre-Columbian era. The Itzaʼ language reflects this history in its nomenclature for the natural world: Itzaʼ words referring to agriculture and agricultural practices remain unchanged since first being recorded. Additionally, Itzaʼ possesses a rich vocabulary for crops and animals that encodes specific information about different varietals and individuals of the species.

Classification

Itzaʼ belongs to the Yucatecan branch of Mayan Languages. The other languages in the Yucatecan branch are Yucatec, Lacandon, and Mopan. All Yucatecan languages are closely linked with each other. However, people speaking Itzaʼ and those speaking Yucatec have difficulties understanding each other. There are 12 different branches of Mayan language, all with sub families like Itzaʼ.

History

The government of Guatemala banned the speaking of Itzá in the 1930s and two generations of Itzá Maya have grown up learning only Spanish. The late 1980s brought an increase in interest among Maya people, including the Itzá, in preserving their cultural heritage. The Guatemalan government has set up an institution, the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, to help develop and preserve various Mayan languages, including Itzaʼ.

Geographic distribution

Itzaʼ is spoken on the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá in San José, Petén Department, Guatemala. Among the ethnic population of 2,000, there are only about 1,000 Itzaʼ speakers remaining, most of which also use Spanish.

Vocabulary

Itzaʼ possesses a rich vocabulary of agriculture and taxonomy. Itza has specific words to encode various properties of different varietals and individuals within a species. Plants and animals of different size, color, and taste are referred to with different terms. Additionally, agricultural terms in Itzaʼ have been virtually uninfluenced by contact with the Spanish, allowing some insight into the commonplace vocabulary of pre-contact Itza.

Discourse

Discourse in Itzaʼ is marked by its heavy use of repetition and linguistic parallelism. Words and linguistic constructions are often repeated throughout a sentence order to draw emphasis to what is being spoken. The resulting sentences are thus composed of several, complete phrases such as in the sentence: The repetition of the pronoun in-ten and the verb k-im-bʼel, as well as the near-repetition of the pronoun eech/tech, is typical of Itzaʼ discourse. Such literary style is comparable to parataxis in English, a style of discourse where simple, coordinating sentences are preferred over long, subordinating sentences. Discourse, both common and mythological, often employs framing particles—particles placed before and after a phrase in order to frame the phrase within the discourse as a whole. These particles convey the spatial and temporal relationships between new and old pieces of information in the discourse, creating larger discourse units. The categories tense, aspect, and mood are interwoven in Itzaj Maya verbal and adverbial morphosyntax. Itzaj narrative discourse suggests a division between what a person knows from personal experience centered in one's home and town (the actual), and what is less known, but imaginable, further away in space-time.

References

External links

Itzaʼ-language resources at Native-languages.org Itza vocabulary by Erik Boot hosted at FAMSI Map of Maya Languages in Guatemala

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378585457 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.