Uspantek language

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Uspantek (Uspanteco, Uspanteko, Uspantec) is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to Kʼicheʼ. It is spoken in the Uspantán and Playa Grande Ixcán[1] municipios, in the Department El Quiché.[2][3][4] It is also one of only three Mayan languages to have developed contrastive tone (the others being Yukatek and one dialect of Tzotzil). It distinguishes between vowels with high tone and vowels with low tone.

Phonology

Consonants

There are 24 consonants in Uspantek including the glottal stop.[5][6]

Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plain Palatalized
Nasal Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Plosive Plain Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Glottalized/Implosive Template:IPAlink~Template:IPAlink~Template:IPA link Template:IPAlink~Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink~Template:IPA link Template:IPAlink Template:IPA link~Template:IPAlink
Affricate Plain Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Glottalized Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Fricative Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Trill/Flap Template:IPA link~Template:IPAlink
Approximant Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink

Vowels

There are 5 vowels in Uspantek and they contrast in vowel length.[5]

Front Central Back
Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Open Template:IPA link Template:IPA link

Tone

Uspantek has two phonemic tones: high and falling (Can Pixabaj 2007:39). In writing, the high tone is represented by an acute accent mark on the vowel (ráqan 'my foot'), and the falling tone is represented by an acute accent mark on the first vowel followed by an unmarked vowel (júun 'one').

The high tone occurs in penultimate syllables when the final syllable contains a short vowel. Additionally, it occurs the following contexts (Can Pixabaj 2007).

  • Most possessive forms of inalienable nouns
  • Bisyllabic single morphemes, especially those with short /a/ or /i/ in the final syllable
  • Intransitive verbs with the suffix -ik
  • Most words with three syllables
  • Loanwords

The following types of words do not have tone.

  • Words with CVʼC structure do not add tone to penultimate syllables when affixes are added.
  • Monosyllabic words with long vowels that have no tone do not add tone to penultimate syllables when affixes are added.

The falling tone occurs in long vowels, and in the following contexts (Can Pixabaj 2007).

  • Monosyllabic words
  • Final syllable of a polysyllabic word

Phonotactics

The main types of syllable structures in Uspantek are CVC, CV, and CCVC (Can Pixabaj 2007:50).

References

Template:Reflist

Literature

  • Can Pixabaj, Telma Angelina, et al. 2007. Gramática uspanteka [Jkemiik yoloj li uspanteko]. Guatemala: Cholsamaj.
  • Tuyuc Sucuc, Cecilio. 2001. Vocabulario uspanteko [Cholyool Tzʼunun Kaabʼ]. Guatemala: Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, Comunidad Lingüística Uspanteka.
  • Vicente Méndez, Miguel Angel. 2007. Diccionario bilingüe uspanteko-español [Cholaj tzijbʼal li Uspanteko]. Guatemala: Cholsamaj.

External links

Template:Mayan languages Template:Languages of Guatemala

Template:Authority control


Template:Mayan-lang-stub

  1. ↑ http://www.inforpressca.com/playagrandeixcan/
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named e25
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Template:Dead link
  5. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Telma Angelina, et al. 2007.
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