Xinca languages

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The Xinca languages form a small family of languages in southern Guatemala near Jutiapa .

The first information about the Xinca languages ​​goes back to a letter from Pedro de Alvarado to Hernan Cortes. This is dated July 28, 1524 and reports on his advance into their territory last winter after Alvarado reached Atiquipaque over the Michatoyat river. He reported that the people there spoke a language that was different from the languages ​​he had encountered on his trip.

Subdivision and relationships with other languages

It includes the following languages, all of which are critically endangered or are already extinct:

  • Yupiltepeque-Jutiapa (extinct ca.1920)
  • Yumaytepeque (extinct, maybe still semi-speaker)
  • Chiquimulilla (extinct)
  • Guazacapan (extinct, only a few speakers left)

A suspected relationship with the Lenca has not yet been proven.

The Xinca languages ​​were spoken in the following cities / villages: Atescatempa, Atiquipaque, Chiquimulilla , Comapa, Guazacapam, Ixhuatán, Yupiltepeque, Jutiapa , Mustiquipaque, Nancinta, Sinacantan, Tacuilulá, Taxisco, Tepeaco ., Tesitepeuaco.

Current situation

Xinca is one of the few indigenous language groups in Guatemala that do not belong to the Maya languages , spoken in seven municipalities and a village in Santa Rosa and Jutiapa . Contrary to the information from Ethnologue , Xinca is not yet extinct, but it is only spoken by the elderly: Around 2006, six speakers were counted in Guazacapán. From the 1990s there were 25 to 300 speakers, but in the 2002 census 1,283 gave Xinka as their mother tongue; 16,214 called themselves Xinka.

literature

  • Lyle Campbell : Middle American languages . In: Lyle Campbell and Marianne Mithun (eds.): The languages ​​of native America: historical and comparative assessment , p. 938. University of Texas Press, Austin 1979.
  • Terrence Kaufman and Lyle Campbell: Xinca handbook: a comparative grammar and dictionary of the Xincan languages . 1977. (unpublished)
  • Harry S. McArthur: Xinca [word list] . In: Marvin K. Mayers (Ed.): Lenguas de Guatemala , pp. 309-312. Mouton, The Hague 1966.
  • Harry S. McArthur: Xinca . In: Marvin K. Mayers (ed.): Lenguas de Guatemala , pp. 425-428. Ministerio de Educación, Guatemala 1966.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Brinton, Daniel: On the language and ethnologic position of the Xinca Indians of Guatemala . In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 22 . 1884, p. 89-97 .
  2. ↑ Campbell, Lyle .: American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America . Oxford University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-19-509427-1 ( worldcat.org [accessed July 2, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Xinxa. In: Ethnologue . Languages ​​of the World. 16th edition (English).
  4. ↑ Xinkan, Pipil, and Mocho ': Three Endangered Language Documentation Project. ( Memento from July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Mesoamerican Languages ​​Project (English).
  5. ↑ XI Censo Nacional de Población y VI de Habitación (Censo 2002) - Idioma o lengua en que aprendió a hablar ( Memento of September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2002 (Spanish).
  6. ↑ XI Censo Nacional de Población y VI de Habitación (Censo 2002) - Pertenencia de grupo étnico ( Memento of February 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2002 (Spanish).

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