Язык тзельталь: майяский язык Мексики

Mayan language of Mexico

Tzeltal or Tseltal ('/(//t//)//s//ɛ//l//t//ɑː//l/) is a Mayan language spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas, mostly in the municipalities of Ocosingo, Altamirano, Huixtán, Tenejapa, Yajalón, Chanal, Sitalá, Amatenango del Valle, Socoltenango, Las Rosas, Chilón, San Juan Cancuc, San Cristóbal de las Casas and Oxchuc. Tzeltal is one of many Mayan languages spoken near this eastern region of Chiapas, including Tzotzil, Chʼol, and Tojolabʼal, among others. There is also a small Tzeltal diaspora in other parts of Mexico and the United States, primarily as a result of unfavorable economic conditions in Chiapas. The area in which Tzeltal is spoken can be divided in half by an imaginary north south line; to the west, near Oxchuc, is the ancestral home of the Tzeltal people, predating Spanish colonials, while the eastern portion was settled primarily in the second half of the twentieth century. Partially as a result of these migrations, during which the Tzeltal people and other cultural groups found each other in close proximity, four different dialects of Tzeltal have been described: north, central (including Oxchuc), south, and southeast, though the southeastern dialect is today spoken only by a few elderly and geographically dispersed speakers. It is a living language with some 371,730 speakers as of 2005, including approximately 50,000 monolinguals.

Tzeltal forms, together with the Tzotzil language, a branch of the Mayan languages, called Tzeltalan, which in turn forms a branch with the Chʼolan languages called Cholan–Tzeltalan. All these languages are the most spoken Mayan languages in Chiapas today. Historically, the branches are believed to have split about 1,400 years ago. Also, some researchers believe that the Tzeltal language has been spoken as far away as in Guatemala. While Greenberg groups Tzeltal with the proposed Penutian superfamily, this hypothesis is not well attested. The Ethnologue classifies Tzeltal as a 5 out of 10 (Developing) on its scale of endangerment status, and additionally describes its use as "vigorous." Nevertheless, its usage is almost exclusively oral; schools rarely incorporate Tzeltal materials, and as a result almost everyone under the age of 30 is bilingual in Spanish. One of the primary differences between the Tzeltalan and the Chʼol languages today is that while the Chʼol languages feature split ergativity, the Tzeltalan languages are fully morphologically ergative. Tzeltal language programming is carried out by the CDI's radio station XEVFS, broadcasting from Las Margaritas, Chiapas. In 2013, Pope Francis approved translations of the prayers for Mass and the celebration of sacraments into Tzotzil and Tzeltal. The translations include "the prayers used for Mass, marriage, baptisms, confirmations, confessions, ordinations and the anointing of the sick Bishop Arizmendi said Oct. 6 that the texts, which took approximately eight years to translate, would be used in his diocese and the neighboring Archdiocese of Tuxtla Gutierrez. Mass has been celebrated in the diocese in recent years with the assistance of translators – except during homilies – Bishop Arizmendi said in an article in the newspaper La Jornada.

The phonology of Tzeltal is quite straightforward with a common vowel inventory and a typical consonant inventory for Mayan languages. Some phonological processes do occur, however, including assimilation, epenthesis, lenition and reduplication.

Focus in Tzeltal behaves such that noun phrases are more or less focalized depending on their degree of predictability in a given context; noun phrases that are more surprising or unexpected in a given context will be said to be more marked for focus that those which are expected.

The relative order of a verb and its active and patient arguments, and whether or not a passive construction may be used, can be affected by the definiteness and topicalization of the arguments. When the agent argument is a definite noun (phrase) and the patient argument is indefinite, only the active construction is grammatical. Thus, the Tzeltal equivalent of the phrase "The dog killed a cat" could not be expressed in the passive voice, because the agent "the dog" is definite but the patient "a cat" is indefinite. Inversely, if the patient is definite and the agent indefinite, the passive voice is grammatically required. Whereas an English speaker could say either "A boy hit Michael" or "Michael was hit by a boy," Tzeltal speakers are obligated to use the passive construct.