Mythologies of the Jakaltek Tribe
The Jakaltek tribe are a Mayan people who live alongside the border of the State of Chiapas in southern Mexico and the Department of Huehuetenango in northwestern Guatemala. Since pre-Columbian times they have lived alongside the modern Mexico-Guatemala border near the foothills of the Cuchumatán Mountains, mainly centered on the municipality of Jacaltenango. The name Jakaltek comes from the Nahuatl language meaning “people of the jacal”. Located on a plateau overlooking Mexico, Jacaltenango is 1,437 m above sea level and its surrounding villages are located at both higher and lower elevations. The town of Jacaltenango is a governmental, religious, and market center of the region. In the Jakaltek language the town of Jacaltenango is called "Xajlaj", or “place of the big white rock slabs.” For many years, this area was physically and culturally the most remote from Spanish centers in the country. The 72-km trip from Huehuetenango, the capital of the department, was a two-day walk. Since 1974, when an unpaved road was built from the Pan-American Highway to Jacaltenango, it has been a five-hour bus ride from Huehuetenango to Jacaltenango. Electricity came to town in 1979. This relative isolation has resulted in the preservation of many customs in the community which have been lost elsewhere. For example, a few Jakaltek people still use the blowgun for hunting small animals and birds. The Jakaltek also maintain a belief system which involves Naguals and Tonals. There is a sizable Jacalteco population in South Florida, specifically in Jupiter which is where most Jacaltecos in the United States live, as well as Indiantown (where most Guatemalans first settled in Florida), West Palm Beach, Lake Worth (home to the largest Guatemalan Maya community in Florida), and Homestead.
In Mexico, Jakaltek is mainly spoken in the state of Chiapas in the communities of Bienestar Social, Flor de Mayo, Guadalupe Victoria, Ojo de Agua, Pacayalito and Huixquilar from the municipality of Amatenango de la Frontera, in Los Pocitos from the municipality of Bella Vista, in El Mango, Frontera Comalapa and Sunzapote from the municipality of Frontera Comalapa and in El Vergel Dos, La Campana, La Gloria, El Colorado and Nuevo Villaflores from the municipality of La Trinitaria. There are also Jakaltek communities in Campeche in the municipalities of Campeche and Champotón. Municipalities in Huehuetenango where Jakaltek is spoken include the following (Variación Dialectal en Poptiʼ, 2000).
Jakaltek is a Mayan language spoken mainly in Jacaltenango municipality in the department of Huehuetenango in the western highlands of Guatelmala, and also in Chiapas in southern Mexico. In 2003 there were 34,000 speakers of Jakalteko in Guatelmala, and there were about 500 speakers in Mexico in 2000. The language is also known as Jakalteko, Jacalteco or Popti'.
Jacalteco Language Resources
Language Map of GuatemalaMap showing where in Central America
the Jacalteco language is spoken.
Diccionario Jakalteko
Online Spanish-Jakalteko glossary, with
some audio clips of spoken words.
Mayan Placenames in Guatemala
Chart of Guatemalan place names in
Jakalteko and other Mayan languages.
Lengua Jacalteco
Information on the Jacalteco language,
including linguistic maps of Mexico
and Guatemala. Page in Spanish.
Wikipedia: Jakaltek
Brief encyclopedia entry on the Jakaltek language.
House of Languages: Jacalteco
Information about Jacaltec language usage.
Eastern Jacalteco
Western Jacalteco
Demographic information about Jacalteco
from the Ethnologue of Languages.
Poptí Language Tree
Theories about Popti's language
relationships compiled by Linguist List.
Jakaltek Language Structures
Jakaltek linguistic profile and academic bibliography.
The Jakalteko are a western Maya Indian group. Estimates of their population vary from 16,000 to more than 32,000. Nearly all of them live in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala, but approximately 1,000 live nearby, across the border in Mexico. Much of their land has been taken in the Guatemalan federal government's land-privatization program, and, as a result, many Jakalteko have become migrant laborers. In the 1980s many of the Guatemalan Jakalteko relocated to the United States to escape government persecution. The Jakaltek /hɑːkəlˈtɛk/ (Jacaltec) language , also known as Jakalteko (Jacalteco) or Poptiʼ, is a Mayan language of Guatemala spoken by 90,000 Jakaltek people in the department of Huehuetenango, and some 500 the adjoining part of Chiapas in southern Mexico. The name Poptiʼ for the language is used by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala and the Guatemalan Congress.
The Jakaltek language has a verb–subject–object syntax. Like many Native American languages, Jakaltek has complex agglutinative morphology and uses ergative–absolutive case alignment. It is divided in two dialects, Eastern and Western Jakalteko. "Eastern and Western Jakalteko understand each other's spoken languages, but not written text." Jakaltek is unusual in that it has four systems of noun and numeral classifiers. Owing to Jakaltek's dissimilarity with Indo-European languages, the reasonably healthy linguistic population and the relative ease of access to Guatemala, Jakaltek has become a favorite of students of linguistic typology.
The Jakaltek (Jacaltec) language, also known as Jakalteko (Jacalteco) or Poptiʼ, is a Mayan language of Guatemala spoken by 90,000 Jakaltek people in the department of Huehuetenango, and some 500 the adjoining part of Chiapas in southern Mexico. The name Poptiʼ for the language is used by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala and the Guatemalan Congress. Jakaltek, are often labeled and spoken of as one major group of Maya. Regardless, there is still evidence of ethnocide against the Maya people in Guatemala as social and economic rights continue to be an issue for the Maya people in Guatemala today. For example, sacred grounds of the Maya seem to be viewed as profitable tourist destinations to the Guatemalan government, and there is no free access to the sites for indigenous Guatemalans and no acts in place guaranteeing the preservation or protection of these sites in the future (Minority Rights, 2018). In schools, officials also have the right to enforce their own particular, non-Maya dress codes even though there is legislation protecting indigenous dress in public and private schools (Minority Rights, 2018). The mining industry in Guatemala has also caused conflicts with the Maya as people living on indigenous land are often forcefully removed for the sake of money and resources for the government (Minority Rights, 2018). There have been movements to resist this push on their land, although it often ends in the criminalization of those who did resist (Minority Rights, 2018). Many cases of discrimination often arise in urban areas within Guatemala as well, with many being ridiculed for their ethnic backgrounds, dress, and language (Minority Rights, 2018). For example, many indigenous people in these urban areas still wear traditional indigenous clothing and don’t speak Spanish, leading them to be marginalized from the labor market (Miller, 2018).This in turn hurts their lifestyles as a whole considering their limited access to social security and a good income (Miller, 2018). There is definitely a case of ethnocide against the Jakalteko in Guatemala, although there is a lack of specific individual information on the group alone. I would rate the information a three on the Maya in Guatemala but would rate the information a one for the group individually.
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