Also Known As: Kaqchiquel,Cakchiquel
Description:
The Kaqchikel, or Kaqchiquel, language (in modern orthography; formerly also spelled Cakchiquel or Cakchiquiel) is an indigenous Mesoamerican language and a member of the Quichean-Mamean branch of the Mayan languages family. It is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala. It is closely related to the K'iche' (Quiché) and Tz'utujil languages.
In the charts below, each of the Kaqchikel phonemes is represented by the character or set of characters that denote it in the standard orthography developed by the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (ALMG) and sanctioned by the Guatemalan government. Where different, the corresponding symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet appears in brackets.
Kaqchikel dialects differ somewhat in their vowels. Each dialect has a set of five tense vowels and either one, two, four, or five lax vowels. The chart below shows all the possible vowels that can occur in dialects of Kaqchikel. While the dialect of Sololá uses the maximal, ten-vowel system with all the vowels except schwa /ə/, the dialects of San Juan Sacatepéquez and San Andrés Semetabaj only use the five tense vowels and schwa.
Because the high tense central vowel and..... full article at Wikipedia |