Itzaj Maya Documentation

ITZAJ MAYA GRAMMAR

Preface

The Itzaj Maya language is a member of the Yukatekan Maya language family, along with Mopan Maya, Lakantun Maya, and Yukateko (Yucatec) Maya. All are spoken in the Mayan lowlands of Guatemala, México, and Belize. Itzaj Maya is severely threatened with extinction. It is a native language to perhaps several dozen older adults, most of whom are at least in their seventies and who live in San José, Petén, Guatemala, on the shore of Lake Petén Itzá.

In the last decade, efforts to revitalize the Itzaj Maya language and culture have attracted local interest in San José, but the future of the language and associated traditional culture is uncertain (Hofling 1996). The Mayan Language Academy of Guatemala (ALMG) continues to take an active interest in supporting language revitalization.

While the details of the history of the modern Itzaj remain unclear, it is generally agreed that their ancestors ruled the last major independent polity in Mesoamerica, which remained independent of the Spanish until 1697, a century and a half later than most of their neighbors (Jones 1998). At least some Itzaj Maya migrated to the Petén from Chichén Itzá in pre-contact times, perhaps returning to a former homeland, and intermingling with inhabitants of the Petén at the time of their arrival or return (Hofling 1991:1-2; Rice, Rice, and Pugh 1998).

After the Itzaj capital on the island Noj Petén was subjugated by the Spanish in 1697, Mayans were forced to live in missionary towns, including San José, or flee into the forest (Jones 1998). Although intergenerational language transmission was seriously disrupted in the 1930’s, San José is an isolated pocket where the language has survived until the present. The economy of San José was dominated by traditional subsistence agriculture and the extraction of forest products, especially chicle, the latex used in the manufacture of chewing gum, until the 1970’s (Schwartz 1990). For information on traditional culture see Hofling (1991), and Hofling and Schwartz (1995).

I began research on the language in 1979 and have studied it ever since, intensively since 1990. Félix Fernando Tesucún has been my primary language consultant since the beginning of my study and deserves much of the credit for the documentation of Itzaj Maya. I have long been aware of its precarious language status and of variation in the linguistic competence of possible language consultants. Early on I was convinced that Fernando Tesucún was as fluent a speaker as any, an excellent teacher, and a pleasure to work with. I therefore decided to rely on him above all others and to strive for depth of description and understanding of his idiolect, rather than attempt to describe variation among speakers of differing degrees of fluency.

This grammar completes the basic documentation of the Itzaj Maya language, complementing the earlier volume of texts (1991) and a dictionary (1997). I have attempted to integrate the three and hope that they will be used together. This work has been done under time pressure and many points merit further research. All documentary materials including fieldnotes and tapes are archived at the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica in Antigua, Guatemala, and at the Center for Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis.

This grammar builds on the work of Schumann (1971) and on my own dissertation (1982) but is far more extensive and comprehensive in its coverage than these early works. I have been guided both by current Mayan linguistic models, especially those of Comrie (1989), Givón (1984, 1990), and those found in Shopen (1985). It is my hope that this grammar will be useful to the general linguistic community as well as to Amerindianists and Mayanists.

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