Xinkan
Xinkan is the name of a small language family in southeastern Guatemala. It is known to have been spoken in at least four towns. The various languages are named after these four towns: Guazacapan Xinka, Chiquimulilla Xinka, Jumaytepeque Xinka, and Yupiltepeque Xinka.
This project is a continuing effort to create usable materials for the Xinkan community and to provide resources about the language to scholars and the international community. This project is a continuation of a project began at the Center for American Indian Languages at the University of Utah; LanguageConservation.org has been asked to host the outcomes of this project and the online Moodle classroom designed to teach elementary Xinkan.
Currently, this project is being directed by Dr. Chris Rogers, LanguageConservation.org research affiliate and founder. This project has developed the Moodle classroom, dictionaries for each Xinkan community, a simple reference grammar (in Spanish), and a more technical and comprehensive grammar (in English). Ongoing developments include expanding the Moodle classroom, providing access to Xinkan materials in a digital format, and developing applications for technology such as Xinkan language learning apps and video games.
If you would like more information about this project or would like to volunteer, please contact me.
RESOURCES
The outcomes of this project include:
- A Dictionary of Guazacapan Xinkan
- A Dictionary of Jumaytepeque Xinkan
- A Dictionary of Yupiltepeque Xinkan
- A Dictionary of Chiquimulilla Xinkan
- A pedagogical grammar of Xinkan
- A comparative reference grammar of Xinkan
- Una gramática comparative de Xinka
- A comparative dictionary of the Xinkan languages
This link leads to a linguistic analysis of one the traditional stories of the Xinkan. It tells about the birth of Tuuru', one of the cultural heros of the Xinkan.
The materials here represent an ongoing project to document, describe and support the Tol community to revitalize the language. Currently, an online corpus of audio materials is being developed alongside a number of scholarly investigations into the language. The following information was organized and created by Sam Furner, Sean Cooney, and Jacob DeBaltzo from resources collected by Terry Kaufman and Lyle Campbell.
The Zeeje Manuscript
One of the most interesting resources available in the Xinkan languages is a colonial documentm called the "Zeeje manuscript". This is a translation of a proclamation made by the Spanish Cortes in 1812. The translation is attributed to Hermenegildo Morales, a secular priest in Chiquimulilla during this time. The following is a photocopy of the original manuscript, a linguistic analysis of its properties, and two presentations that I delivered about it.
Information structure and Word Order
Xinkan languages have variable clausal word order. A basic verb-object-subject word order was transmitted from a common language Proto-Xinkan, though word order variations have not been described in enough detail to make the same conclusion. In contrast, because of intense contact with speakers of a variety of languages, it has been argued that at least some of the morphosyntactic features of the Xinkan languages are consequences of borrowing, though the specific functions of word order variation have not entered these discussions for any of the languages involved. This paper addresses these issues by describing the variation in Xinkan word order and by determining if it has been transmitted or diffused. I argue that Xinkan word order variation is caused by changes in the information packaging of predicates and arguments in ways that are completely different from either Spanish or Mayan languages - the two most obvious sources of diffusion by contact for the Xinkan languages – and that transmission is, therefore, the most likely explanation. This argument provides a new perspective on the contact scenarios that existed for the Xinkan speakers.
- Xinkan Information Structure and Contact SSILA 2022 Presentation
- Xinkan Information Structure Data and References