Chol Ritual Language
with Terrence Lee Folmar, Heidi Altman, Ausencio Cruz Guzmán, and Bernardo Pérez Martínez
©1996 J. Kathryn Josserand and Nicholas A. Hopkins

Chols and the Chol Language

Chol is an American Indian language spoken in parts of southern México (see Map 1). The term is also used to refer to its speakers, about 100,000 corn farmers living in the tropical lowlands and adjacent uplands of the state of Chiapas. The name is often said to derive from the term chol ’agricultural field’, but since the dialect variant ch’ol (with glottalized initial consonant) also exists for the name of the language, this etymology can be questioned. Speakers refer to the language as lak t’an ’our language’. In Colonial documents, Chol populations living along the Usumacinta River valley were identified as Palencanos (near Palenque, Chiapas), Pochutlas and Topiltepeques (in the middle Usumacinta River region), and Lacandones (near the mouth of the Lacantún River). The latter term now refers to Yucatecan-speaking Indians who moved into the region after Chol resettlement during the sixteenth century.

The Chols currently occupy a continuous area in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, and adjacent parts of the state of Tabasco. Population is concentrated in the municipios (county-like political subdivisions of the state) of Tila, Tumbalá, Salto de Agua, Yajalón, Palenque, and Sabanilla, and has expanded in modern times into jungle areas to the east (in the Usumacinta drainage lowlands east of Ocosingo). The great majority of Chols live in small rural settlements, but a few urban centers are dominated by Chol populations, notably Tila, Tumbalá and Salto de Agua.

Census figures for 1980, by municipio (Valdez and Menéndez 1987), give an indication of the major concentrations of Chol speakers: in Tila, some 26,000 Chol speakers among 35,000 residents; Salto de Agua, 16,000 residents, almost all Chol speakers; Tumbalá, 12,000 Chols of 16,000 residents; Palenque, 13,000 Chols, 35,000 residents; Sabanilla, 8,000 Chols, 12,000 residents; Yajalón, 5,000 Chols, 10,000 residents. Allowing for some under-counting in the census, the Chol-speaking population numbers about 100,000.

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