Native to Belize, Guatemala Native speakers 9,000–12,000 (2008) ISO 639-3 mop | Ethnicity Mopan Writing system Latin | |
Language family Mayan
Yucatecan
Mopan–Itza
Mopan | ||
Mopan (or Mopan Maya) is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. It is spoken by the Mopan people who live in the Petén Department of Guatemala and in the Maya Mountains region of Belize. There are between three and four thousand Mopan speakers in Guatemala and six to eight thousand in Belize.
Contents
The other Yucatecan languages are Yucatec, Lacandon, and Itza'. Mopan began to diverge from the other Yucatecan languages at least one thousand years ago.
Distribution
Towns where Mopan is prominently spoken include San Luis, Poptún, Melchor de Mencos, and Dolores in Guatemala, as well as San Antonio in the Toledo District of Belize.
Word order
The word order in Mopan is verb-object-subject (VOS), although subject-verb-object (SVO) is also common.
Numerals and numeral classifiers
Numerals in Mopan always include a numeral classifier which is added as a suffix. These classifiers indicate qualities about the referent. For example, round objects are indicated by the suffix -kuul, while long, thin objects are indicated by the suffix -tz'iit. The most commonly used numeral classifiers are -p'eel, for inanimate objects, and -tuul, for people and animals. In all, there are over 70 numeral classifiers used in Mopan Maya.
Consonants
The following are the consonant sounds used by the Mopan Maya language (written with the International Phonetic Alphabet):
In addition, some sources list [ŋ] (the velar nasal) as a consonant sound in Mopan Maya.
* The sounds [g] and [f] are used for Spanish loan words and do not correspond to sounds native to Mopan Maya.
Vowels
The following are the vowel sounds of the Mopan Maya language:
Orthography
Since the colonial period, Mopan Maya has been written with the Latin script. Historically, a wide range of orthographies have been used to represent the language, although recently, the orthography has been standardized by the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (ALMG). The following table shows some of the orthographies that have been used to represent Mopan Maya: