Abstract
This article examines patterns of maintenance and shift affecting Kaqchikel-Maya in contact with Spanish in a municipality of the central highlands of Guatemala. It examines self-reported skills in the use of Spanish and Kaqchikel-Maya as well as directly assessed knowledge of Kaqchikel in relation to ethnicity, generations, and gender in town and village in the municipality. The study draws on fieldwork between 2011 and 2013 in the municipality of Parramos, Chimaltenango. Two researchers in collaboration with native Spanish-and-Kaqchikel-speaking assistants surveyed 280 speakers. Data are based on responses to an orally administered questionnaire that included self-reporting of language skills and direct assessment measures focusing on knowledge of Kaqchikel vocabulary as well as on the ability to respond to conversational questions in Kaqchikel. Results are interpreted in relation to stability vs. instability in the use of the two languages and to the asymmetry of the bilingualism that distinguishes the ethnic communities.
Appendix: Sample sizes
Village or Town | Self-Identification | Gender | Total | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Male | Female | |||||
Village | Ladino | Generation | Students | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Indígena | Generation | Students | 22 | 22 | 44 | |
Parents | 8 | 11 | 19 | |||
Seniors | 6 | 10 | 16 | |||
Town | Ladino | Generation | Students | 30 | 41 | 71 |
Parents | 6 | 15 | 21 | |||
Seniors | 7 | 8 | 15 | |||
Indígena | Generation | Students | 18 | 29 | 47 | |
Parents | 15 | 13 | 28 | |||
Seniors | 9 | 8 | 17 | |||
Total | 122 | 158 | 280 |
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Dear Pr.
- Spanish and Kaqchikel-Maya: A study in town and village in Guatemala’s central highlands
- Language is me: Language maintenance in Chipilo, Mexico
- “I have struggled really hard to learn Sami”: Claiming and regaining a minority language
- Reconsidering language shift within Singapore’s Chinese community: A Bourdieusian analysis
- Language ideologies in a Uyghur comedy sketch: the comedy sketch Chüshenmidim ‘I don’t understand’ and the importance of Sap Uyghur
- On the nature of mixed languages: The case of Bildts
- Language and identity construction: Evidence from the ethnic minorities of Armenia
- What is in a language: Essentialism in macro-sociolinguistic research on Afrikaans
- Small languages and small language communities 83
- Rap music in minority languages in secondary education: A case study of Catalan rap
- Reviewers 2017
- Reviewers for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2017
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Dear Pr.
- Spanish and Kaqchikel-Maya: A study in town and village in Guatemala’s central highlands
- Language is me: Language maintenance in Chipilo, Mexico
- “I have struggled really hard to learn Sami”: Claiming and regaining a minority language
- Reconsidering language shift within Singapore’s Chinese community: A Bourdieusian analysis
- Language ideologies in a Uyghur comedy sketch: the comedy sketch Chüshenmidim ‘I don’t understand’ and the importance of Sap Uyghur
- On the nature of mixed languages: The case of Bildts
- Language and identity construction: Evidence from the ethnic minorities of Armenia
- What is in a language: Essentialism in macro-sociolinguistic research on Afrikaans
- Small languages and small language communities 83
- Rap music in minority languages in secondary education: A case study of Catalan rap
- Reviewers 2017
- Reviewers for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2017