Log 10: Kaqchikel and Tz'utujiil Elicitation

Gesoel and I have had the pleasure to work with several speakers of Kaqchikel and Tz’utujiil for our project exploring the distribution of /wi/ , which has been described as a post-verbal focus particle in Kaqchikel.

We first interviewed Doña Toya in Tecpán. Doña Toya hosted Emma for two weeks, and will be welcoming her back to her home after our Patzún adventure. Doña Toya is a very enthusiastic person who loves to share her knowledge of Kaqchikel; to summarize some of our findings for her dialect, Doña Toya rejected the /wi/ particle in many of the environments in which it has been reported to be obligatory in the literature—for instance, we expected /wi/ to occur obligatorily after the verb upon the extraction of a locative, but she rejected it outright:

(1)  X-Ø-tzopin           Lolmaay chwa jay.
       COM-B3s-jumo   Lolmaay backyard
       'Lolmaay jumped in the yard.'

(1') Akuchi’    x-Ø-tzopin           (*wi) ri    Lolmaay?

      where    COM-B3s-jump     WI  DET Lolmaay

      ‘Where did Lolmaay jump?’

Doña Toya was also kind enough to share with Gesoel and I some of her family history—for instance, she told us about her brother, who always encouraged everyone in her family to speak Kaqchikel, which prompted Doña Toya to teach the language to her daughter Odi and her granddaughters. While I will not delve into the details of Doña Toya's family history, it was a reminder of how aware we should be as fieldworkers of Guatemala’s recent history and its ongoing impact on the life of the Mayan communities (for an excellent book on the worst years of the war, I recommend “Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit” by Virginia Garrard-Burnett).

Gesoel with Doña Toya and her daughter Odi

After our arrival in Patzún, Gesoel and I have worked with speakers from our host families. I’ve been interviewing Doña Gilda, who is my host mom Doña Esperanza’s daughter. She is also a very enthusiastic speaker and a pleasure to work with. In contrast with Doña Toya, Doña Gilda considers the /wi/ particle optional; again, unlike what is reported in the literature:

(2) Ankuchi’ x-Ø-tzopin          (wi)  ri       a       Lu?

      where      COM-B3s-jump  WI  DET CLF  Pedro

      ‘Where did Pedro jump?’

Chris and I with our (huge) host family; Doña Gilda is holding baby Ximena

Finally, we were lucky to find a Tz’utujiil speaker right here in Patzún! Tz’utujiil is a K’ichean language closely related to Kaqchikel which is spoken primarily in San Juan, San Pedro and Santiago, around Lake Atitlán, though there are speakers as far as Chicacao in the state of Suchitepéquez. Pedro had heard that there was a Tz’utujiil speaker somewhere in the 4ta Avenida, so on the 20^th we ventured and asked around, finally falling upon a pink house where Doña Rosario lives and works. Doña Rosario is a Tz’utujil speaker from Santiago Atitlán who lives in Patzún with her husband and children—she cooks and sells patines every Friday (a Sololá dish made out of spicy tomato sauce and a variety of possible meats; shrimp, fish, chicken, or cecina (beef)). For Doña Rosario, a /wa/ particle is obligatory upon extraction of adjuncts:

(3) Bani’tz’ra’ x-Ø-pa’j=*(wa)        Axwan?

     where       COM-B3s-fall=WA Juan

     ‘Where did Juan fall?’

So while we are well on our way towards documenting (and analyzing) the distribution of the /wi/ and /wa/ particle in Kaqchikel and Tz'utujiil, there's lots more work to be done!

Working with Doña Rosario; Paulina (who is working on Tz'utujiil phonology) took the pic

Ps. I call the language Tz'utujiil (with a long <i>) following García Ixmatá (1997).