Tojolabal

Tojolabal is a Mayan language spoken in Mexico. Glottolog rates it shifting.

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Tojolabal · 16.3°N 91.8°W

Tojol-ab'al is a Mayan language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico by the Tojolabal people. Tojol-ab'al is spoken, principally in the departments of the Chiapanecan Colonia of Las Margaritas, by about 70,000 people. It is related to the Chuj language.

The name Tojolabal derives from the phrase [tohol aˈbal], meaning "right language". Nineteenth-century documents sometimes refer to the language and its speakers as "Chaneabal" (meaning "four languages", possibly a reference to the four Mayan languages – Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, and Chuj—spoken in the Chiapas highlands and nearby lowlands along the Guatemala border).

Anthropologist Carlos Lenkersdorf has claimed several linguistic and cultural features of the Tojolabal, primarily the language's ergativity, show that they do not give cognitive weight to the distinctions subject/object, active/passive. This he interprets as being evidence in favor of the controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

From Wikipedia · Tojolabʼal language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Written down

Spetsanal ja swinkil ja lu’um k’inali junxta wax jul schonjel, sok ja sijpanub’ali, ja yuj ojni b’ob’ sk’u’luk ja jas sk’ana-i ja b’as lekilali, ja yuj ja ay sk’ujoli sok ay spensari t’ilan oj yilsb’aje lek sok ja smoj jumasa.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in Unicode).

Words in Tojolabal

Meaning	Word	Romanization
person	winkil*
name	bi7il*
eye	sat*
ear	sti7xCikintik*
nose	ni7*
tooth	ex*
tongue	ak*
hand	kab*
blood	Cikel*
bone	bak*
skin	cuxmil*
knee	Sixkan*
breast	miS*
liver	Cokol*
water	jaʼ
fire	kak*
sun	kaku*
star	kanal*
stone	ton*
mountain	wic*
tree	te7*
leaf	spowil*
night	a7kwal*
dog	ci7*
fish	Cay*
louse	uk*
one	xune*
two	Cab*
I	ken*
you	wen*