Chapter 4

Hieroglyphic Ch’olan to Ch’orti’

Tracing Linguistic and Social Interactions into Eastern Ch’olan

Kerry M. Hull

Linguistic research over the last fifty years has allowed major advances in our understanding of linguistic interactions within the Mesoamerican sphere. A growing trend in the field of Mesoamerican studies is incorporating a multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing ancient society. This study traces the social and linguistic interactions of Ch’olan Mayan languages over the last 2000 years. Focusing principally on Eastern Ch’olan, I discuss the nature of contact and linguistic sharing from the Early Classic period to colonial times, beginning with the language underlying the Maya hieroglyphic script, which I term Hieroglyphic Ch’olan. Drawing on a wealth of data from other studies, as well as my own fieldwork data, I reconstruct the processes of lexical borrowing involving Ch’olan languages through social contact and ideological appropriation in the multilingual and multiethnic world of ancient Mesoamerica. New Ch’orti’ data are also provided showing Ch’orti’ to be engaged in lexical borrowing with a variety of other languages. This study brings together evidence of the major role Ch’olan languages played as a lexical donor as well as the eclectic nature of Ch’olan in borrowing from other languages at times. What becomes apparent is that Ch’olan languages have had a disproportionally large impact on both Mayan and non-Mayan languages for millennia, while still being active in their adoption of foreign terms.

Historical linguistics provides a wealth of evidence concerning the social and linguistic interactions of ancient Mesoamerica. This chapter focuses on the role Ch’olan languages, primarily Eastern, have played in influencing (and being influenced by) other Mesoamerican languages. This study surveys the movement of lexemes between languages and investigates viable scenarios for determining the motivation and direction of borrowing. Hieroglyphic Ch’olan was the source of lexical sharing into various Mayan and non-Mayan languages, yet was also open to incorporating foreign terms at the same time, mainly from Mije-Sokean and Nawa1 languages. Trade and market economies, Olmec influence, migrations, and perhaps the politics of non-Maya sites such as Teotihuacan could be factors in understanding Hieroglyphic Ch’olan’s lexical interactions. In the Postclassic period, however, two daughter languages, Ch’olti’ and Ch’orti’, also had an inordinately large lexical impact on other Mesoamerican languages. This study primarily discusses linguistic interaction between Ch’orti’ and other languages in order to flesh out many of the borrowing processes and social, political, and geographical factors that were involved. In part, the high percentage of loanwords from Ch’olan is linked to the status Ch’olan languages (as well as Yukatekan to a lesser extent) enjoyed during the Classic period as the language of the hieroglyphic script.

Mayan Language History

Proto-Mayan appears to have been in use by 2000 BC (Kaufman 1976). There are thirty-one Mayan languages, several extinct or soon to be so, all deriving from Proto-Mayan. Proto-Mayan split into five major subgroups—Wastekan, Yukatekan, Greater Q’anjob’alan, Eastern Mayan, and Greater Tzeltalan (to which Ch’olan belongs) (Kaufman and Norman 1984:78)—perhaps as early as 2000 BC, by which time lexicostatistical dates indicate “some regional dialectal differences had already diverged into several Mayan languages” (Dahlin et al. 2007).

The movement of Ch’olan and Yukatekan speakers in the Early Preclassic is still a matter of considerable debate. Kaufman believes Yukatekan speakers started moving toward the north into the Yucatán around 1000 BC. J. Kathryn Josserand (1975:505) puts that migration at a later date, based partially on the use of Chicanel ceramics, which she associates with Yukatekan speakers who date to the Late Preclassic. It seems that by 100 BC there were Ch’olan-Tzeltalan speakers as far south as the Copán region (Kaufman 1976:108), or by a few hundred years later. Wichmann (2002) has found strongly Eastern Ch’olan features in the inscriptions at Copán, suggesting the presences of Eastern Ch’olan speakers by at least the seventh century AD. These migrations eventually located Yukatekan speakers in the north and Ch’olan speakers in the south. Epigraphic data supports this idea, but would isolate Yukatek even farther north, extending the area where Ch’olan was used in the Classic period.

Ch’olan and Tzeltalan probably diverged around AD 0 (Dahlin et al. 2007:374). The language underlying Maya hieroglyphic writing, Hieroglyphic Ch’olan, emerges by AD 200 (Houston et al. 2000). Kaufman (1976:110) dates the breakup of Ch’olan into Ch’orti’ and Ch’ol-Chontal around AD 600. Wichmann (2006:283), however, notes an earlier “Eastern verses Western Ch’olan differentiation” in place by AD 400 that precedes the formal split about AD 600. In the model of Houston et al. (2000), the Western branches of Ch’olan became Ch’ol and Acalan (later becoming Chontal) while the Eastern branch developed into Ch’olti’ and Ch’orti’—two languages whose line of linguistic parentage is still a matter of debate today.

Tzeltalan speakers during the Classic period (AD 250–900) are found in the west, where Tzeltalan features have been noted in the inscriptions. Several Tzeltalan traits have also been identified by Wichmann, Lacadena, and others. For example, the spelling of WINIK-li,2 winik[i]l for the “winal” glyph on Tila Stela B may be an attempt to show a Tzeltal or Tzotzil form winikil used in a series of month names (Lacadena and Wichmann 2005:36). Inscriptions from other sites near present-day speakers of Tzeltal such as Chinkultik and Tonina have specific Tzeltalan features, suggesting an extended occupation of those areas.

Other linguistic features recently described as Tzeltalan have been noted in inscriptions at Pomoná and Joloniel, in addition to the one just mentioned at Tila, all areas thought to have had Ch’ol speakers. Hopkins et al. (2008:83–84) has noted that historical sources place Ch’ol speakers “along the Tulijá River and in the highland areas that were to become the modern municipios of Tila and Tumbalá, Chiapas” but that forced migrations and resettlements reduced the populations to mainly the municipios of Tila and Tumbalá. This leaves open the possibility of Tzeltalan speakers in Joloniel at an early date.

Epigraphic data shows a limited area of Yukatekan influence in hieroglyphic writing, primarily in the northern Yucatán, areas in the west of possible Tzeltalan influence, a western zone of West Ch’olan features, and a stronger impact of Eastern Ch’olan languages in the eastern parts of the Maya lowlands.

Yukatekan and Ch’olan Interactions

Ch’olan and Yukatekan languages (see figure 4.1), which separated around 2000 BC, have had a long and substantial linguistic influence on each other lexically (Justeson et al. 1985:9–20; Kaufman and Norman 1984:145–147; Wichmann and Brown 2003:58). Yukatekan speakers and Ch’olan speakers have shared geographical boundaries in the past and even today. These boundaries at the time the arrival of the Spanish were nearly the same as they were in the Late Classic period, as Fox and Justeson (1982) have shown. Another even more important reason for their high degree of lexical sharing is that both languages were main players in Classic Maya civilization,3 Ch’olan as a prestige language (see below) and Yukatek as possibly a literary language (see Lacadena and Wichmann 2002:313). Indeed, contact between Yukatekan and Ch’olan-Tzeltalan languages must have been considerable since they share a sizable portion of their lexicon, though the Yukatekan influence came later in the Classic period (Campbell and Kaufman 1985:193). Also, as Danny Law has noted, they share sound changes from Common Mayan. While their genetic relationships are highly divergent, they have undergone similar phonological changes, such as pM /*q/ > /k/ and pM /*r/ > /y/, yet this similarity likely took place due to linguistic contact after their differentiation (Law 2009:222–223). Law also points out that they have similar pronominal systems, stressing that while it is nearly impossible to determine the direction of borrowing with the shared ergative pronouns between Yukatek and Ch’olan, it seems that the absolutive pronouns originated in Ch’olan (Law 2009:228).

It is clear from recent epigraphic studies (Lacadena and Wichmann 2002; Wichmann 2002) that the main language found in the hieroglyphic inscriptions is Ch’olan, but mixed with a sizable portion of Yukatekan vocabulary.4 Yukatekan words and morphology grow over time in the northern Yucatán. This increasing presence of Yukatekan grammar and vocabulary is found in the Dresden and Madrid Codices, as Wald (2004), Lacadena (1997), and others have convincingly demonstrated. Wichmann and Brown (2003:58) argue that the presence of strong Ch’olan and Yukatekan features in the Madrid and Dresden Codices suggests a possible lingua franca based on these two languages: “Given the robust tendency for lingua francas to underlie formation of linguistic areas (Brown 1999:157, 161), a lowland lingua franca might have facilitated the great amount of convergence between Ch’olan and Yukatekan.”

While Ch’olan and Yukatekan enjoyed a high degree of status during the Late Classic throughout the Maya lowlands, Fox and Justeson (1982) have suggested a strong Yukatekan influence in many of the major cities in the lowlands. Yet it is Ch’olan that is the more common source of lexical and morphological borrowing into other languages. However, once Ch’olan’s influence waned starting in Postclassic times, other languages increased in their influence as donors, even to the point that, as Law (2009) has pointed out, certain innovations such as the inclusive/inclusive pronouns did not originate with Ch’olan speakers nor were they adopted by them.

Social Stratification and Linguistic Interaction

Ch’olan languages have been the source of borrowings for millennia, in large part due to the status of Hieroglyphic Ch’olan in the Classic period as a prestige language, as Houston et al. (2000) have proposed (cf. Wichmann 2006:55). Houston et al. (2000) term the prestige language of the hieroglyphs “Classical Ch’olti.’” According to Robertson and Law (2009:294), Classical Ch’olti’ “was a common prestige language spoken through the Classic Maya cultural area—with the proviso that, like other prestige languages, it was learned by non-Ch’olti’an speakers who participated in the literate Classic Mayan culture.” Houston et al. (2000:335) further explain their understanding of a prestige language: “The medium of script retards change in written language by recording, in tomes of acknowledged prestige, the linguistic habits of previous generations. In contrast, low speech is often a localized phenomenon, conditioned by slang and invigorated by changing usage. A prestige language is one that is preponderantly high, written, employed by trained scribes and exegetes, and suitable for formal or liturgical settings.”

If the notion of a “prestige language” is valid for the hieroglyphic script, this would certainly inform questions of linguistic borrowings as one might expect it would much more likely be a lexical donor language rather than the recipient. Indeed, Matras (2012:19) notes two primary factors that cause contact-induced linguistic change: “gaps” in the receiving language system or “social prestige” on the part of the donor language. It is necessary to state, however, that language contact, even in superstrate/substrate situations, does not always produce large-scale borrowing. Some indigenous languages, in fact, resist the adoption of foreign elements. For example, Nivaclé and Chorote, languages of Brazil, according to Campbell and Grondona (2012:337), “have very few loanwords from Spanish and, on the other hand, deploy native linguistic resources to create new words to accommodate concepts acquired through contact with Spanish culture.” The authors further explain: “Nivaclé and Chorote do not allow items of acculturation to impose foreign lexical material on these languages, but rather impose their own linguistic resources on newly acquired items.” Yet, it must be recognized that the directionality of borrowing, if it takes place, will more likely be a subordinate group borrowing from a superordinate group (Brown 1987:376).

Prestige borrowings are often what Law terms “high culture” terms: “words for cosmological, ritual or scientific concepts such as calendrical terms (Brown 1987), deity names, and so forth (Justeson et al. 1985; Wichmann and Brown 2003), lending support to the idea that Classic Maya civilization was an important force in the circulation of linguistic material in the region” (Law 2014:27). Many such well-diffused words of dominant culture that can be identified from Classic period Maya society have strong affinities to Ch’olan. Kaufman has argued that terms that he labels “Classic Maya culture words,” such as “moon, debt, numeral classifier for persons, rabbit, trap, 400, 8000, star, eleven, female relative, cornfield, bean, word, atole, heart, name” all derived principally from Ch’olan, “usually displacing a proto-Mayan word” (Kaufman 1976:109). Kaufman further notes: “besides the usual kind of lexical borrowing between adjacent languages, in the Mayan region there is one language group which has had vastly more lexical and phonetic influence than any other—Cholan” (Kaufman 1976:112).

Linguistic Interactions with Hieroglyphic Ch’olan

Hieroglyphic Ch’olan, however, was not insulated from outside linguistic influence, despite its status as a prestige language. In fact, Hieroglyphic Ch’olan adopted numerous loanwords, principally from Sokean languages or Nawa. Beyond issues of status as a prestige language, Hieroglyphic Ch’olan also interacted lexically with other languages due to contact and areal diffusion.5

The intellectual and cultural sharing from the Early Classic period must be evaluated against an Olmec backdrop. The Olmec civilization had an extensive influence on many other Mesoamerican languages (Campbell and Kaufman 1976:82). Today there is strong consensus that the language of the Olmecs was Mije-Sokean (Campbell and Kaufman 1976:82), but it was evidently a combination of political clout or prestige as well as adopted cultural features that facilitated Mije-Sokean borrowings into early stages of Mayan languages.6 The borrowing of cultural features can be seen in the pervasive borrowing of terms related to cultigens from Mije-Sokean into other languages in Mesoamerica and is evidence of a Mije-Sokean-Olmec connection as the Olmecs were, as Campbell and Kaufman (1976:83) state, the “first highly civilized agriculturalists of Mesoamerica.”7

Apart from ideologically or resource-related borrowings, social contact with Classic period ruling culture is another mechanism for linguistic sharing. Since Mesoamerican languages on the whole only minimally borrow from each other, Kaufman (2001:7) points out, “any amount of borrowing that permeates a whole language or dialect area is evidence of a serious amount of language contact.” What languages have left a linguistic fingerprint in Hieroglyphic Ch’olan? Primarily Mije-Sokean and Nawa. Loanwords from these two languages are readily detectable in the hieroglyphic script. Before discussing Mije-Sokean and Nawa words in Hieroglyphic Ch’olan, it would seem prudent to describe the methods for determining the source language in borrowing, the chronology of the event, and, if possible, the motivation or social interaction facilitating the loan.

Kaufman (2003:29) has remarked: “Whenever a word is borrowed from one language into another, this reflects interaction among the speakers of the two languages. By knowing what changes a form has undergone before and after borrowing, scholars can identify who borrowed the word from whom, and the relative time that the borrowing was made. A set of such borrowings can also suggest features of the cultural interaction that led to their adoption.” There are various tools for understanding loanwords within Mesoamerican languages, such as glottochronology (still a controversial method), phonology, distributional evidence, and syllable structure.

Determining the approximate date for when specific borrowings take place is often possible through glottochronology. Knowledge of sound changes and when they occurred within a language family can also be very instructive, such as with the term lukum, which generally means ‘earthworm’ or ‘intestinal worm’ in many north, central, and south Mayan languages. Brown and Witkowski (1982:104) note that the center of origin for the diffusion of the term affected Q’anjob’al and Jakaltek later in Mayan history before the *q > k shift in central and north Mayan (cf. Brown and Witkowski 1979). Also, the expected form in Q’eqchi’ is luqum, but the only attested form is lukum, which likely comes from a Ch’olan or north Mayan language source.

Foreign terms in Mayan languages are often recognizable due to their syllable structure. Proto-Mayan was usually monosyllabic. As Campbell (2013:62) notes, “Words which violate the typical phonological patterns (canonical forms, morpheme structures, syllable structure, phonotactics) of a language are likely to be loans.” Campbell and Kaufman (1976:84) identify numerous polysyllabic terms in proto-Mije-Sokean that are found in various Mayan languages but whose syllable structure does not conform to the common monosyllabic root forms of proto-Mayan: ‘cacao’ *kakawa, ‘gourd’ *tsima, ‘squash’ tsi’wa, ‘tomato’ *koya, and ‘guava’ *pataŋ.

Phonological and distributional evidence can point to diffusion of terms, often resulting from contact between language groups. Determining the nature of that contact is the challenge from strictly a historical linguistic standpoint. Fortunately other lines of evidence, such as archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and so on, can corroborate assumptions or offer new ideas on defining the type of contact.

Indo-European studies have strongly benefited from a merger of archaeological and linguistic data. However, when dealing with distant past civilizations, both archaeological and linguistic data are incomplete and rarely conclusive, so determinations made by comparing two (or more) lacking data sets must be tempered by this reality. The possible conflicting nature of archaeological and linguistic evidence has played out for decades in the debate over where Proto-Indo-European arose. J. P. Mallory (1976) argues that shortcomings of accurately reconstructing Indo-European culture by archaeologists and overinterpretations of linguistic data have compounded the difficulty in securely identifying the “homeland” for the Proto-Indo-Europeans. More recent studies involving DNA and more sophisticated linguistic analyses point to a date circa 4000 BC and to herders in the Pontic-Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea as the earliest Proto-Indo-Europeans (Chang et al. 2015). Phylogenic studies by Gray and Atkinson (2003) support a dating of between 3000 BC and 2000 BC. The most prominent competing idea to the steppe theory is that Neolithic farms left from Anatolia, taking their language and agricultural knowledge with them, around 9500–8000 BC. Recent models based on vocabulary evolution have been shown to support the earlier dates proposed by the Anatolian hypothesis (Bouckaert et al. 2012:957). Note, however, that both theories claim that archaeological evidence supports their linguistic claims (Bouckaert et al. 2012:960; Chang et al. 2015:195). Nevertheless, there is inherent value in assessing the Indo-European migrations by correlating linguistic and archaeological data (see Renfrew 1987).

As Witkowski and Brown (1978:943) have noted: “The unraveling of detailed relationships between archaeological cultures and ethnic-linguistic groups that existed thousands of years ago in Mesoamerica will undoubtedly be a very complex undertaking, but one which should prove rewarding.” A productive example of this type of interdisciplinary approach to understanding linguistic interactions would be Kaufman’s 1976 study “Archaeological and Linguistic Correlations in Mayaland and Associated Areas of Meso-America.” More of such studies are needed in historical Mayan language research.

Loanwords into Hieroglyphic Ch’olan

Numerous loanwords can be found in Maya hieroglyphic writing. Boot (2009) identifies several loanwords that appear in the hieroglyphic script: yum ‘boss, master; father’, unen ‘child of father’, chi’k ‘coati’, tzima’ ‘calabash’, patah ‘guava’, ul ‘atole’, pom ‘incense’, patan ‘tribute, service’ (cf. Macri and Looper 2003:289), and ko’haw ‘helmet’ (cf. Macri and Looper 2003:290–291). The suggested source language for each of these loanwords is given in table 4.1.

Table 4.1. Proposed loanwords into Hieroglyphic Ch’olan and their source languages.

Eight of the eleven loanwords in table 4.1 are from Mije-Sokean languages, two from Nawa,8 and one (kakawa)9 from either Proto-Mije-Sokean or Nawa. The appearance of Mije-Sokean words is not surprising (based on the above discussion) considering the Olmecs most likely spoke Mije-Sokean. While Boot (2009) only mentioned two to three Nawa loans, others have been suggested. Macri and Looper (2003:288–289) have also identified several other terms that may be of Nahuatl origin.10 Glyph T506/774 reads ohl and is likely a loanword from the Classical Nahuatl yo:li. Early occurrences of the OHL logogram date to AD 683 Palenque on the Temple of the Inscriptions west panel (B7, O9; see figure 4.2), but no examples are known from before early seventh century (289).11

Furthermore, in the Postclassic Dresden Codex, Nahuatl god names appear,12 first identified by Whittaker (1986). Two of the three god names are fully spelled out phonetically: ta-wi-si-ka-la, tawiskal (Dresden 48C) and ka-ka-tu-na-la, kaktunal (Dresden 50A), whereas one combines logographic and syllabic information: CHAK-xi-wi-te-i, chak xiwitei (Dresden 49C; figure 4.3). Tawiskal corresponds to the Aztec deity Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Whittaker 1986:57), while Kaktunal, according to Whittaker, refers to the Aztec deity Kaktonal (1986). The final name chak xiwitei is a hybrid form, consisting of Yukatekan term chak ‘great’ and a form corresponding to either the Nahuatl xi: hu(i)tl ‘comet’ or less likely xihu(i)tl ‘year’ (Macri and Looper 2003:293). Thus, the Dresden Codex displays the use of Yukatekan, Ch’olan, and Nahuatl vocabulary within its pages. While the Venus Tables in the Dresden Codex contain several mentions of Nahuatl god names, the grammar of those sections is decidedly Ch’olan (Wald 2004:57).13

At what point, however, did Nawa words begin entering into Hieroglyphic Ch’olan? The question is a complicated one on several fronts. There is still some debate as to when Uto-Aztecan Nawa speakers would have entered into the Valley of Mexico (see Beekman and Christensen 2003:116–118), so determining at what point we can confidently posit a Nawa presence in Mesoamerica becomes crucial. In Kaufman’s (2001:1) view the data speak loudly: “Linguistic facts preclude the presence of Nawa in the Valley of Mexico before 500 CE,” insisting then on a post–AD 500 date (closer to AD 600) for any Nawa borrowings to or from Mayan languages.

Teotihuacan has been suggested as a possible source of Nawa loanwords (see Dakin and Wichmann 2000)—assuming of course a Nawa language was spoken there, which is a problematic and complicated question. Due to Teotihuacan’s power and influence in Mesoamerica from the first century AD, Teotihuacan would have been in an ideal position to influence neighboring languages. Unfortunately, the site of Teotihuacan has no clearly identifiable writing system to indicate language affiliation. Many of the symbols and parts of the iconography, however, may contain linguistic material. In Taube’s (2000) study on Teotihuacan “writing,” he finds Nahuatl in Teotihuacan glyphs and iconography, offering the best evidence yet of the use of Nahuatl at the site, in spite of Kaufman’s assertion that Nawa was not even in the Valley of Mexico until roughly AD 500, which corresponds to the time of the start of the collapse of the Teotihuacan civilization. According to Kaufman (1976:115), “The Teotihuacanos can hardly have spoken Nahua.” Kaufman (2001:7) instead sees Totonac or Mije-Sokean as the best candidates for the language of Teotihuacan.

One datable, possible Nawa loanword appears in the writings at the site of Palenque, Mexico. On the East Panel of the Temple of the Inscriptions (R7; figure 4.4) the term pik ‘skirt’14 appears in a ritual where the ruler Pakal presents various offerings to their patron gods. Today the term pik ‘skirt’ is diffused into Yukatekan, Ch’olan, and some highland languages, and may be a Nahuatl loan. Kaufman (2003:1105) sees it as a Common Mayan term and lists reflexes of the *peeq in Yukatek, Mopan, Ch’orti’, Ch’ol, Tzeltal, and Q’eqchi’. However, it is possible that pik is related to the Nahuatl pi:ki “to arrange, to put together, to tie together with string to make something with netting, to assemble, to build” (Campbell 1985:391).15 If pik is a loan from Nawa, it should predate the early seventh century AD date mentioned in the inscription.16

The earliest clear loanwords from Nawa into Hieroglyphic Ch’olan are in the mid-seventh century AD, which postdates the demise of Teotihuacan (cf. Macri and Looper 2003:293).17 Perhaps then it was the mysterious collapse itself of the Teotihuacan that spurred emigration18 and additional social contact that played some role in Nawa words finding their way into Maya texts in the seventh century. Another possibility is for contact with Nawa speakers from other regions of Mexico or Guatemala (Macri 2005:324). Regardless of the precise method for borrowing, Nawa clearly had an influence of Hieroglyphic Ch’olan, suggestive of increased interactions among these groups (Macri 2010:208).

One possible Nawa term from the Early Classic period could push our dating of Nawa interaction with Hieroglyphic Ch’olan back considerably further: kok or koht ‘eagle’. The word koht ‘eagle’ is found in K’iche’, Uspanteko, Kaqchikel, and Yukatek Mayan (Dakin 2003:276–277; cf. Hull and Fergus 2009:90). Dakin suggests the term originates from a Proto-Uto-Aztecan form *kwa-ra’a-wi, which appears as cuauh-tli in Nahuatl (see also Justeson et al. 1985:21–28; Kaufman 2003:608; Smith and Berdan 2003:298, 382). The fact that kó:t was borrowed into Yukatek but into none of its sister languages suggests a later date for borrowing into the Yukatekan branch.19 Significantly, kot (“coht”) was also borrowed into Ch’olti’ (Morán [1695] 1935), even though the language also contained the form t’iw. As Hull and Fergus have noted (2009:90–91), “it is not possible to determine if they were synonyms (perhaps one a native term and the other a borrowing) existing simultaneously in the language or if they referred to different species of eagles.” A possible cognate term kok appears in Tzeltalan as kok mut (lit. ‘eagle-bird’) referring to the Harpy Eagle (Hunn 1977:142). Kok-mut has a considerable time depth in Mayan, possibly appearing on an Early Classic greenstone mask as ko²-mu-ti, kok muut (figure 4.5). If kok is cognate to the Nawa form (and there are several reasons one could argue it is not), this would be by far the earliest Nawa term in Hieroglyphic Ch’olan.

Linguistic Interaction with Ch’olti’ and Ch’orti’

The final aspect I wish to discuss is the linguistic interaction with two of Hieroglyphic Ch’olan’s daughter languages: Ch’olti’ and Ch’orti’. The last Ch’olti’ speaker died in the seventeenth century, and there are about 10–12,000 speakers of Ch’orti’ today. Both languages have enjoyed considerable linguistic interactions with other Mayan and non-Mayan languages, part of which relates to geographical proximity and social interactions.

Nahuatl has made fairly significant lexical contributions to Ch’orti’. Many Nahuatl terms used by the Ch’orti’ today, however, were first borrowed into Spanish during the colonial period for administrative purposes (cf. Dakin 2010:224; Kaufman and Justeson 2007:199), for items unknown to Europeans, and other reasons.20 For example, the term apante in Ch’orti’ is from the Nahuatl āpan ‘on the water’ and apantli ‘ditch of water,’ but in Ch’orti’ means ‘farming with irrigation in the dry season.’ This term was clearly diffused in colonial Spanish first before entering into Ch’orti’.21 Evidence for this earlier borrowing into Spanish comes from the fact that Ch’orti’ already has the term payja’ with precisely the same meaning. It is therefore most likely that apante spread through Spanish and is now being used simultaneously with payja’.

Other avenues for borrowing were possible contact with Pipil and other Nawa-speaking groups who migrated south into southern Mexico and down as far as Nicaragua. The Pipil migrated from central Mexico at approximately AD 900 (Kaufman 1976:116; 2001:5, 13; cf. figure 4.1). Pipil speakers were well established in Escuintla, Guatemala, at the time of the conquest. Pipil was also proximate to Ch’orti’ in El Salvador as parts of north Honduras (Fowler 1981:476–508, 1985:37).

The following is a discussion of terms that derive from Nahuatl and are common in Ch’orti’ today.

The archaic Nahuatl form *ilamat ‘old woman’ (today ilamah) appears in Ch’orti’ as ilama. Stress in Nahuatl falls on the penultimate syllable, which was also borrowed into the Ch’orti’ term (iláma), even though stress standardly resides on the ultimate syllable in Ch’orti’.

The Nahuatl term tēkpan (lit. ‘lord-place’), meaning ‘palace,’ was borrowed by the Ch’orti’ and applied to ‘church’. From this base, Ch’orti’ has derived other grammatical forms and variations of meaning. For example, the intransitive verb tekpani was derived signifying ‘to perform a “promise” ceremony’ as well as ‘to fast.’ Also, the compound noun tekpan-tun (lit. ‘church-stone’) in Ch’orti’ means a ‘place where ceremonies are performed.’

The Nahuatl term mazātl ‘deer’ appears in early printed Ch’orti’ sources from the nineteenth century (Membreño 1897; Suárez 1892). Membreño (1897) writes the term as ‘Masahá’ for venado (deer). In Membreño’s manuscript, he consistently represents a final glottal stop orthographically as hV (e.g., “Tehé” for te’ ‘tree’). Thus, he was writing masa’, the same pronunciation found today in Ch’orti’ for ‘deer.’22

The term for ‘city’ in modern Ch’orti’ is chinam, a Nahuatl borrowing (chinamitl). What term this replaced is unknown, and there is no other way to express ‘city’ in Ch’orti’. Additionally, the idea of a ‘country’ or ‘nation’ is simply noj chinam, lit. ‘big city’.

One term well diffused in Mesoamerica today is the term nagual ‘spirit, alter-ego’, deriving from the Nahuatl nāhualli ‘familiar, nagual; sorcerer, witch, apparition’ (Bierhorst 1985:222). In Ch’orti’, nawal is one of the principal words for speaking of one’s ‘spirit’ as well as evil spirits and sorcerers. It is likely but not certain that this term came through Spanish into Ch’orti’ due to its wide distribution across languages in Mesoamerica. Indeed, so common is the term ‘nagual’ that it has even entered English dictionaries today.

Ch’orti’ has a cognate of a form that traces back to Proto-Uto-Aztecan: tojtole’ ‘rooster.’ Indeed, the morphemic structure of the term hints strongly that it is a loanword. Dakin (2003:281) lists various cognates in Tequistlatec -dulu ‘turkey,’ Jicaque tolo, and Huave tel ‘female turkey. In archaic Nahuatl *to:-lo:-tl was a more general term for ‘bird’ and cognate to the proto-Sokean *tu:nu:k (Dakin 2003:281; cf. Campbell and Kaufman 1976:86). Campbell and Kaufman (1976:83) note that cognates such as tunuk’/tuluk’ for ‘turkey’ in Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chuj, Jakaltek, and Motozintlek are likely loans, “and comparison to Pzo [Proto-Sokean] *tu?nuk ‘turkey’ proves it to be so.”23 Kaufman (1976:116) views *tu?nuk ‘turkey’ as a Mije-Sokean loan into various Mesoamerican languages.

Turkey domestication has generally been accepted to have begun in Mesoamerica and spread later to the American Southwest (McKusick 1980; Reed 1951), though Breitburg (1993:153) believes that turkeys were first domesticated by groups of Anasazi-Mogollon and only later were they introduced into Mesoamerica. Recent DNA and archaeological studies have established “at least two occurrences of turkey domestication in pre-contact America, one involving the South Mexican wild turkey, likely in south-central Mexico, and a second involving Rio Grande / Eastern wild turkey populations, with a subsequent introduction of domesticated stocks into the Southwest proper” (Speller et al. 2010:2811). Archaeological evidence places turkeys in Mesoamerica between 800 and 400 BC (Álvarez 1976). According to Speller et al. (2010:2807), domestic turkey stocks were established by at least AD 180 in the Teotihuacan Valley. The authors also indicate that domestic stocks of turkey appear in the archaeological record in the Southwest around 200 BC–AD 500. For the Maya area, Campbell and Kaufman (1976:83) cite a personal communication from Michael Coe that turkeys were domesticated around AD 300.

Epigraphic evidence shows several terms for ‘turkey’ were in use in the hieroglyphic script. On Nim Li Punit Stela 15 the word is spelled phonetically a-k’a-cha, ak’ach, a Western Maya term (Kaufman 2003:631). A turkey head logograph on a La Corona panel was thought to be read ak’ach until just recently. Houston et al. (in preparation) now read it as AK’, ak’, a well-diffused form in Eastern Mayan languages (see figure 4.6; see also Kaufman 2003:630). On the La Corona panel it appears in the name Chak Ak’ Paat Kuy in conjunction with events dating to the late seventh century. A later term in the Dresden Codex (17C-3) appears as ku-tzu, kutz, a Greater lowland term especially common in Yukatekan languages. A third term, u-lu-mu, ulum ‘turkey’ also turns up in the Dresden Codex (46B-1). Thus, three individual terms are found in the hieroglyphic texts dating from the late seventh century to the around the time of the conquest. In Ch’orti’, ak’ach, deriving from *‘ak’aach, is now used for ‘chicken’ and separate terms for tom turkeys, ajtzo’, and turkey hen utu’ chumpi’ are standard. Similarly, tojtole’, a term for ‘turkey’ stretching back to Proto-Uto-Aztecan now means ‘rooster’ in Ch’orti’. In both cases, words for ‘turkey’ semantically shifted to other fowl: chickens and roosters.

There is also evidence for nineteenth-century sources that Ch’orti’ also borrowed from neighboring non-Mayan languages. Membreño (1859–1921)—a lawyer, judge, and once president of Honduras—compiled a list of Ch’orti’ terms that were published in 1897. He borrowed heavily from Ruano Suárez’s (1892) word list in Ch’orti’. Membreño’s Ch’orti’ data contain a number of foreign terms not found in Ch’orti’ and that do not look to be Mayan (original orthography retained):

The two numbers ‘one’ (yu-te’) and ‘five’ (waj-te’) appear to contain the general numeral classifier -te’, but the expected form for ‘one’ is jun and for ‘five’ jo’. The number twelve (“Doce”) Astoraj is clearly a borrowing from another language. Each of the remaining terms above given by Membreño have no immediate cognates in Ch’orti’, Ch’olti’, or other Mayan languages and would appear to be loanwords. However, I have been unable to identify any of them from neighboring languages, so more work needs to be done here.

Membreño also provided several sentences in Ch’orti’, one of which has several possible loanwords whose donor is unclear: “Tecpán uchen tinará mutajíjón ñuti maira é christiano” for which the translation is given “La iglesia es grande: cabe mucha gente” (The church is large: it fits many people). “Tecpán” is a loanword from Nahuatl, meaning ‘church’ and was discussed above. Much of what follows, however, is opaque. The final three words of the phrase, maira é christiano, correspond to mucha gente (many people) in his translation. The four intervening terms uchen tinará mutajíjón ñuti must relate to grande (big) and cabe (fit). But none of these four terms is recognizable in modern Ch’orti’ today and are all, therefore, likely loanwords from an as-yet-unidentified source.

While many other examples could be cited, Nahuatl and other non-Mayan languages have clearly had an impact on the lexicon of Ch’orti’ stemming from contact well before the arrival of the Spaniards in addition to considerable borrowing in and since the colonial period.

Ch’orti’ has also participated in sharing various terms with other Mesoamerican languages with which it has had contact. For example, Xinka has borrowed primarily from Ch’orti’ among the lowland Mayan languages (Campbell 1972:190).24 Ch’orti’ and other Ch’olan languages have also had a surprisingly sustained influence on many highland Mayan languages, in particular Q’eqchi’ and Ixil.

Ch’olan and Q’eqchi’ Interaction

The Q’eqchi’ language has borrowed a substantial number of lexical items from Ch’olan languages in the last two millennia. The Q’eqchi’ today primarily reside in the Alta Verapaz of Guatemala, with other communities in Baja Verapaz, El Quiche, and parts of Belize (among others). There is corroborating evidence from archaeology and linguistics that the interaction between Q’eqchi’ and Ch’olan languages began in Classic period times. For example, Black-and-White-on-Red pottery appears in the Q’eqchi’ area from the Maya lowlands around AD 700–1000 (Wichmann and Hull 2009:876; cf. King 1974:13–14). The direction of borrowing is almost always from Ch’olan to Q’eqchi’, suggesting the cultural dominance of Ch’olan. Wichmann and Brown (2003:68–69) have noted that the type of borrowings occur in areas such as architecture, religion, foods, technical implements, and the economy.

Justeson et al. (1985:9) documented 24 Q’eqchi’ lexical borrowings from the lowland Mayan Languages of Yukatekan and Ch’olan, suggesting to these authors that Ch’olan speakers “were prominent in the formation of ancient lowland Maya civilization.” Q’eqchi’ has also borrowed considerably from other Mayan languages. Wichmann and Cecil Brown (2003:65–69) noted 134 cases of borrowing or possible borrowing into Q’eqchi’ from other Mayan languages. They also determined that when Q’eqchi’ borrowed a lexical term, the donor subgroup was Ch’olan about 70 percent of the time, and if Yukatekan was added, that number increased to over 80 percent. Quite remarkably, as Wichmann and Hull (2009) have noted, Q’eqchi’ has borrowed about 15 percent of its overall lexicon, 4 percent of which comes from Ch’olan and Yukatekan.

Wichmann and Hull (2009) have also identified thirty additional cases of possible borrowings into Q’eqchi’ from Ch’olan. They note that many of the borrowings from Spanish relate to material culture. However, many of the terms borrowed from Ch’olan languages dealt with human domain over nature. Furthermore, Wichmann and Brown (2003) earlier showed that Ch’olan and Yukatekan loanwords commonly correlated with material and culinary culture, with edible animals, and with production or provision of food.

In short, an analysis of Ch’olan borrowings into Q’eqchi’ reveals that the most common type of words borrowed are those relating to new ways to dominate nature. Borrowings from Spanish, on the other hand, most often related to man-made objects, usually those introduced by Western culture (Wichmann and Hull 2009).

The term mayuy in Ch’orti’ presents an interesting case for tracing the direction of the loan. In Ch’orti’, mayuy refers to “a kind of haze, smoke, or cloud that carries no moisture and settles on the mountain sides. It sometimes comes as far down as the valley floor, often just before rainy season. It can also be the name for the smoke from burning fields (some consultants said mayuy was the same as b’utz’, ‘smoke’). Others use them together at times as b’utz’ mayuy” (Hull 2000). Several hieroglyphic examples of this term are known, one as the name of a captive from Naranjo, Yax Mayuy Chan Chaak, and another an individual from Laxtunich, Mayuy K’awiil (cf. Lacadena 2004:149). Kaufman (2003:478) notes that the only other language to have this precise form is Eastern K’iche’ (Rabinal), and he views it more likely that Ch’orti’ borrowed it from Eastern K’iche’.25 However, due to the close genetic relationship (lexically and grammatically) between hieroglyphic Ch’olan and Ch’orti’, it might be more prudent to assume K’iche’ may have borrowed it from Ch’orti’, all things being equal.

While it is often impossible to distinguish which Ch’olan language early borrowings came from, what is certain is that Ch’olti’ has had a significant linguistic impact on Q’eqchi’. For instance, the term k’anti’ (lit. ‘yellow-mouth’) meaning ‘snake’ appears in Q’eqchi’ but without the expected phonological changes from Proto-Mayan, signaling by its phonological shape a Ch’olti’ or a Ch’orti’ borrowing (Brown and Witkowski 1982:103; Kaufman 1976:110–111). Wichmann and Brown (2003:69) have noted Ch’olti’ has contributed “a disproportionally large number of loans to Q’eqchii’ . . . especially remarkable in light of the fact that we possess only very limited lexical data for the language.” Of the 134 possible Mayan-language loans into Q’eqchi’, 59 are from Ch’olti’.

There was considerable influence on Q’eqchi’ from Ch’olti’ due to contact because of their proximity right into the colonial period, and likely much earlier. That influence would soon disappear, however. In the first half of the seventeenth century, population estimates for Ch’olti’ speakers, often early on referred to as “Manche Chol,” are given as high as 30,000 (though Thompson [1990:63] suggested a much lower number of 10,000). Disease killed most children under sixteen in 1678 in and around the town of San Lucas Tzalac. After more tumultuous times involving revolts and reductions (cf. Thompson 1990:63), Ch’olti’ speakers were forced to migrate to the Rabinal area in the highlands, putting them in contact with various highland Maya groups.

Ch’olan and Ixil

Ixil presents another interesting case of borrowing from Ch’olan. Ixil is spoken in the Guatemalan highlands in San Juan Cotzal, Nebaj, and San Gaspar Chajul. Present-day Ixil communities do not border any Ch’olan language groups, yet the Ixil language shares a high degree of lexical items with Ch’olan languages. Ch’orti’ alone has also donated ten documented terms into Ixil (Wichmann and Brown 2003:59).

While nearly two-thirds of Ixil loans come from Q’anjob’alan (which does share geographical boarders with Ixil), Ch’olan, which does not, is still responsible for 39.4 percent of Ixil’s lexical loans.

For example, Wichmann and Brown (2003) have argued that the resulting forms in cases of velar stops before /e/ being palatalized in Ixil could also signal a Ch’olan donor. Wichmann and Brown (2003:63) state that since these groups have been in direct contact for centuries, this would suggest these borrowing happened at quite an early period, possibly even back in Classic period times, “when the influence of Ch’olan on other Mayan languages would have been at its peak.”

Another example of borrowing from Ch’orti’ and Ch’olti’ is their shared term k’anti’, a type of snake, mentioned above as a Q’eqchi’ borrowing also. Brown and Witkowski (1982:103) remark the Chajul dialect of Ixil has this term, but not the expected reflex of it, which would be *q’an-čiɁ, clearly signaling a borrowing from Ch’orti’ or Ch’olti’.

The fact that Ixil has been geographically distant from Ch’olan languages since the extinction of Ch’olti’ forces us to look to an earlier time period. Maya hieroglyphs on Nebaj ceramics suggest closer contact in pre-Columbian times. The relatively high degree of borrowing from Ch’olan into Ixil would also suggest a reasonable amount of contact before the colonial period.

TRADE AND LEXICAL BORROWING

Within the Mesoamerican phylum one would expect at least a moderate degree of areal influences among the various languages and language groups (cf. Witkowski and Brown 1978:942). Linguistic work in the last fifty years has greatly contributed to our understanding of migrations, trade, and social contact in Mesoamerica. Ceramic distribution also attests to large-scale interactions, irrespective of political boundaries (Clayton 2005; Englehardt 2010:70). These sustained interactions among past Mesoamerican groups have resulted in considerable linguistic sharing, a substantial portion of which is readily attributable to trade. Expansive trade networks were in place, both long (Andrews 1984:827) and short (Bower 1993:358) distance, of goods and materials such as obsidian, salt, cacao beans, cotton and cotton mantles, tobacco, agave, pyrite, ceramics, shells, and spices, and parrot feathers, all of which could have brought different languages and societies in contact (Dahlin et al. 2007:366; Tourtellot and Sabloff 1972). For example, salt was widely traded but only produced in significant quantities in a few places, mainly Salinas de los Nueve Cerros (Dillon 1977), Stingray Lagoon, and Punta Ycacos Lagoon in Belize (McKillop 1995:216, 223). The largest producer, Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, supplied the Chiapas lowlands, the central Petén, and was traded north (Andrews 1983:100). Salt was one of the major trade items moving down the Caribbean coast in the Late Classic period and was possibly the earliest item to be traded in bulk before the Spanish arrival (Andrews 1980:31–32). Epigraphic evidence for the term ‘salt’ atz’aam, has recently surfaced at the site of Calakmul (Martin 2012:68–69). In addition, trade items such as salt,26 cacao beans, and cotton mantles were themselves used as mediums of exchange or currency (Berdan et al. 2003). Indeed, ancient markets (k’iwik in Hieroglyphic Ch’olan) throughout Mesoamerica were also likely loci for sustained interactions among different language groups (Dahlin et al. 1987).

Coastal and riverine trade routes played an important part of ancient Mesoamerican interactions (Guderjan 1995; McKillop and Healy 1989). Archaeological evidence of docks in the Maya area has been found, such as at Laguna de On (Wharton 1998:67) and Blue Creek (Barrett and Guderjan 2006). The Usumacinta-Pasión River was also a well-established trade route in the Classic period (Braswell 2014) that facilitated trade and contact for central hubs such as Cancuen (Demarest 2004:163). The vast array of rivers, inlets, and coastal waters greatly facilitated trade, contact, and linguistic sharing throughout ancient Mesoamerica.

The linguistic contact outlined in this chapter shows a considerable Olmec influence on both Nawa and Mayan vocabulary, indicative of the Olmec’s regional status as well as its material influence in the form of agricultural practices and products. In addition, evidence of market economies tracing back to proto-Mije-Sokean also suggests cultural sharing in this area from the Olmecs and their language. Thus, Campbell and Kaufman (1976:88) note terms in Proto-Mije-Sokean related to a market economy such as *to’k ‘to sell something’ and *yoh ‘to buy something.’ Furthermore, an early Nawa term for ‘market,’ tiyankis(-tli), is likely a loan since it cannot be analyzed morphologically (Kaufman 2001:12), perhaps indicating an outside influence relating to markets.

By the end of the Early Classic period, however, the influence of Nawa languages becomes more pronounced. Only part of this burgeoning Nawa influence is attributable to the arrival of Nawa-speaking groups into the Valley of Mexico, however, since some borrowing from Nawa seems to precede this event.

Conclusion

The rise of the Classic period Maya in the lowlands marks yet another shift in ideological and linguistic borrowing as Ch’olan becomes a major donor of lexical material to other languages—something that continued through the colonial period. As I have shown, one of reasons why Ch’olan languages have been a major player in lexical sharing is in part due to the status of Hieroglyphic Ch’olan throughout the Classic period. Eastern Ch’olan languages have also had a remarkable impact on neighboring Mayan and non-Mayan languages alike. Yet Hieroglyphic Ch’olan, Ch’olti’, and Ch’orti’ readily borrowed from other languages from very early times.

As Classic period Maya civilization begins to dissolve during the “collapse,” a remarkable resurgence of Nawa linguistic proliferation takes place due to the southern migrations (discussed above) of Nawa speakers beginning around AD 900 (Kaufman 2001:5, 13). The culminating influence of Nawa is felt throughout the region again thanks in large part to its adoption by Spanish administrative structures, resulting in a fresh wave of Nahuatl terms entering Mayan and non-Mayan languages in Mesoamerica.

The linguistic and social landscape of ancient Mesoamerica is one of long-term, sustained interaction indicative of a highly fluid social interchange of goods, ideas, and the words to express them.

Notes

References