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Introduction to the Languages and Their Speakers

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Introduction to the Languages and Their Speakers ONE Introduction to the languages and their speakers A reference grammar is a special achievement for a field linguist. It represents a solu- tion to a complex linguistic puzzle. It records both the rocky and the zenlike indi- vidual relationship the linguist has had with the language(s) as appropriate analyses are tested. It represents the discovery of a new perspective on the shared human ex- perience. It highlights the areas of investigation that need more discovery. However, for a language community a reference grammar is much more. A grammar represents a shared culture and identity. It can provide members of the community justification for their collective and individual histories by affording authenticity in the eyes of the national and international communities. A grammar can become a tool for developing learning materials and encouraging cultural preservation. It can be the most defining feature of a language community. I have written this reference grammar to reflect my own scientific relationship with Xinkan as a linguistic family. I expect this will mean that those readers interested in the history and languages of Central America will find interesting new ideas. In this regard, it will add to the scholarly knowledge of this area. However, this grammar also reflects my interest in supporting the community. I have written it to give the Xinkas a stepping- stone in the (re)discovery of their history and culture. I expect this to lead to a sense of their language history and to provide them with at least some of the tools necessary to carry on the cultural, and especially linguistic, revitalization efforts currently underway. 1.1 The Xinkan linguistic context Xinkan is a language family of at least four closely related languages. Speakers were once spread throughout southeastern Guatemala. Currently speakers of these lan- guages live solely within the department of Santa Rosa in the southeastern portion of the country. These languages are unique within Mesoamerica as they are unrelated to any of the other languages or language groups used or spoken within this cultural and geographic area. Figure 1.1 shows the Xinkan area of Guatemala (shaded). There has never been a community of individuals united linguistically, geographi- cally, or politically called Xinkas. This has resulted in some confusion among scholars 4 • Introduction to the languages and their speakers and community members about the appropriate label for these languages. In the past most community members who claimed Xinkan heritage referred to themselves as ‘Pipil’ (the name of a Uto- Aztecan language once spoken widely in this geographical area). However, the term ‘Xinka’ has been used to refer to these languages since at least 1770, and the term has become significant in the contemporary environment of indigenous cultural reaffirmation in Guatemala.1 The practice has carried over into the everyday conversations of many community members, who choose to refer to themselves as Xinka. Interestingly, this label does not coincide etymologically with any known Xinkan word.2 In light of the fact that there are clear linguistic differences between at least four Xinkan varieties, it has become standard practice among scholars to refer to these individual languages by the towns where they were, or are, spoken.3 I follow this practice and call the four varieties discussed in this grammar Guazacapán Xinka, Chi- quimulilla Xinka, Jumaytepeque Xinka, and Yupiltepeque Xinka. Elsewhere in this grammar, I use just the town names to refer to a specific variety of Xinkan. The re- petitive term Xinka is dropped. Nevertheless, the community members do not pro- vide unique labels for each of these varieties. Among community members and some scholars interested in Central American languages, the lack of individual labels for each language has led to confusion regarding the nature of the relationship between the assorted linguistic varieties. One of the linguistic benefits of this grammar is the ample evidence it offers that each variety represents an independent, though closely related, language. The town of Guazacapán lies at the intersection of the Guatemalan highlands and the Pacific coastal plains. Chiquimulilla is approximately five kilometers to the east, Jumaytepeque thirty- five kilometers to the north, and Yupiltepeque sixty- nine kilometers to the northeast. Past documentation has briefly mentioned other towns that were most likely Xinkan- speaking at one time, including Taxisco, Sinacatán, and Jutiapa. (A second variety spoken in the town of Chiquimulilla has also been men- tioned.)4 Since there is little information on these additional languages, conclusions about their relationship to the other four Xinkan languages are not discussed here. In the Maya Pre- Classic era (2000 Bc– Ad 250) this area was on the trade route that con- nected Mesoamerica and lower Central America.5 Figure 1.2 shows the geographical relationship between the four Xinkan towns. Often a reference grammar will focus on a single linguistic variety. In this regard, this book is quite different. However, since I envision this grammar will serve the needs of the community and because I follow their practice of treating the linguistic varieties of Xinkan equally, I believe it is necessary and appropriate to include all the varieties. This grammar thus considers Xinkan as a language group while still ac- knowledging the differences between its varieties. Another benefit of this grammar is that it shows the course of development these varieties have followed as they diverged from a common mother tongue. The indi- vidual diversification of each of the Xinkan varieties from its common source has resulted in mutual unintelligibility between the speakers of each variety. This diver- 1.1 The Xinkan linguistic context • 5 Figure 1.2 Map of Xinkan towns represented in the grammar sification is especially unique since speakers of these languages are believed to have occupied, and still do occupy, a relatively small geographical region of Guatemala. Currently there are no fluent native speakers of any of the Xinkan languages or varieties (see below). Yupiltepeque Xinka was the first language to be lost as its speakers shifted to Spanish, and it has not been used as a language of communication since around the turn of the twentieth century (after 1908).6 Fortunately, prior to this shift a few small grammatical descriptions and vocabulary lists were published. All of the information about Yupiltepeque Xinka in this grammar come from these sources. Consequently, it may be painfully obvious that there are large gaps in the information on Yupiltepeque Xinka in this work. This is unavoidable. However, the available infor- mation does provide a significant look into the patterns and structures of this variety. Similarly, speakers of Chiquimulilla Xinka, Guazacapán Xinka, and Jumaytepeque Xinka only used the language as a means of wider communication until the 1960s and late 1970s. Speakers of these linguistic varieties can still be found, but most have gone through a period of extreme linguistic attrition that naturally affects their gram- matical competence in the Xinkan languages. They have not used their languages for more than forty years, opting instead for the national language of Guatemala: Spanish. Those speakers still able to use one of the languages are elderly and speak Xinkan only with much difficulty, though with practice each is able to remember aspects of his individual variety of the language. Fortunately, in the 1970s Terrence Kaufman and Lyle Campbell conducted extensive fieldwork with the last fully fluent and competent 6 • Introduction to the languages and their speakers speakers of these three then- surviving Xinkan languages. A significant portion of the data in this grammar comes from their unpublished materials. Occasionally, relationships between the Xinkan varieties and other languages in Mesoamerica have been proposed.7 However, these relationships have all been dis- credited, in spite of occasionally receiving a relatively widespread reception. Never- theless, over the languages’ long history it is true that Xinkan speakers have been in contact with the speakers of many other languages. They have borrowed words and grammatical structures in the process, making the language group a record of their unique cultural history and development.8 Without a doubt, given the nature of lan- guage contact in the area, the Xinkan languages also left their own traces on the lan- guages of the area.9 The Mesoamerican languages that are geographically closest to the Xinkan lan- guages are Poqomam (Mayan: Greater Kʼichean) to the north and west, Chʼortiʼ (Mayan: Cholan) to the far northeast, and Pipil (Uto- Aztecan: Nahua branch) to the immediate southeast. Kaqchikel (Mayan: Kʼichean) is also nearby, though not con- tiguous. Evidence of the contact between Xinkan speakers and the speakers of these languages is seen in the loanwords used in each of the Xinkan languages. For example, the word wünak (Guazacapán), winak (Chiquimulilla) ‘witch, sorcerer’ (not available in either Jumaytepeque or Yupltepeque Xinka), is a borrowing from Mayan winaq ‘person’.10 There are also some Mixe- Zoquean loanwords in Xinkan that are diffused throughout the majority of the Mesoamerican linguistic area.11 Other languages may have once been active in this geographical area and influenced the Xinkan languages. There is some evidence for this additional contact, but the resolution to that question lies beyond the descriptive scope of this grammar. Geographically, the archeological site at Chalchuapa, El Salvador, lies directly to the east and adjacent to the Xinkan region. This site was Poqomam- speaking at the time of the Spanish invasion, although Poqomam reached Chalchuapa very late, and some scholars associate the site with speakers of the Cholan- Tzeltalan branch of Mayan. This site is considered to be one of the two largest Pre- Classic architectural sites; La Blanca is the second.12 Undoubtedly, the importance of the region in the archeological record suggests cultural contact and borrowed linguistic elements be- tween the languages involved.
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