Ch'orti Maya Area: Past and Present

Part 1: The Ch′orti′ Language and Its Relationship to Ancient Mayan

part i The Ch′orti′ Language and Its Relationship to Ancient Mayan In this section, authors present their arguments for two competing hypotheses regarding the founders of the ancient Maya script. For the nonlinguist , the reading may be challenging but is well worth the effort given the important implications. David Mora-Marín, Nicholas Hopkins, and Kathryn Josserand (who tragically passed away during the book’s preparation ) use contemporary linguistic data as well as evidence from ancient Mayan texts to support the hypothesis that the inventers of the ancient Mayan script—whom we now know were already writing by 300 b.c., based on recent archaeological discoveries from San Bartolo in the Petén, were speakers of Pre-Ch′olan (Saturno, Stuart, and Beltrán 2006). PreCh ′olan presumably was transformed into Proto-Ch′olan during the Classic period (a.d. 200–900), and by the end of that period into the individual Ch′olan languages (Ch′orti′, Ch′olti′, Ch′ol, and Chontal). Danny Law, John Robertson, Stephen Houston, and Robbie Haertel, on the other hand, see evidence that Classic Ch′olti′an was already a fully separate language spoken by the inventers of the Maya script, and that Ch′orti′ was a colonial offshoot of Ch′olti′. Both sets of authors have a limited amount of data with which to reconstruct the ancient languages, and they disagree on whether variations signal distinct languages, regional dialects, or socially stratified dialects (that is, high and low languages). Given the data limitations, disagreements about even single glyphs at a single location can be pivotal. Does, for example, the use of a particular verb form at one site mean that the form was used in ordinary or elite speech throughout the Maya world, or was it used just in that location? Other disagreements revolve around the 11 Figure I. Mario, Guatemalan Ch′orti′ scholar-activist from Pelillo Negro, Jocotán, and member of the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages, Ch′orti′ Area, at the Copan ruins, May 2004. (Photo by Brent E. Metz) The Ch′orti′ Language and Its Relationship to Ancient Mayan · 13 grammatical function that particular forms took. The reader will also notice refutation and borrowing from a third model, that of Lacadena and Wichmann, and we regret being unable to include them in this volume. Fortunately, the authors of both chapters here aptly reference the basic tenets of their model. Whether the inventors of the ancient Maya script were speakers of Classic Ch′orti′an or Pre-Ch′olan, there is no disagreement that the study of Ch′orti′, both language and culture, is critical for illuminating the ancient Maya world. Mora-Marín and colleagues even surmise that the Copan rulers, who would eventually speak Ch′orti′, were descended from the Pre-Classic metropolis of Kaminaljuyu in the central highlands of Guatemala. ...