Mopan language

Mopan
Native to	Belize, Guatemala
Ethnicity	Mopan
Native speakers	9,000–12,000 (2008)
Language family	Mayan Yucatecan Mopan–Itza Mopan
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mop
Glottolog	mopa1243

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.

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.

Grammar

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.

Phonology

Consonants

The following are the consonant sounds used by the Mopan Maya language (written with the International Phonetic Alphabet):

		Labial	Coronal		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	voiceless /voiced	p ɓ	t ɗ			k g*	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ
Affricate	plain /ejective		ts tsʼ	tʃ tʃʼ
Fricative		f*	s	ʃ			h
Approximant			l		j	w
Flap			ɾ

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:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i~ɪ   iː~ɪː		u   uː
Mid	ɛ~e   ɛː~eː	ɘ   ɘː	o   oː
Open		a~ɑ   aː~ɑː

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:

IPA	Colonial	Kaufman	Dienhart	ALMG
a~ɑ	a	a	a	a
ɘ	a	ä	ʌ	ä
aː~ɑː	a, aa	aa	aa	aa
ɘː				ää
ɓ	b	b'	b	b'
t͡ʃ	ch	ch	č	ch
t͡ʃʼ	cħ	ch'	č'	ch'
ɗ		d'	d	d'
ɛ~e	e	e	e	e
ɛː~eː	e, ee	ee	ee	ee
f				f
g				g
i~ɪ	i	i	i	i
iː~ɪː	i, ii	ii	ii	ii
h	h, j	j	j	j
k	c	k	c	k
k'	k	k'	c'	k'
l	l	l	l	l
m	m	m	m	m
n	n	n	n	n
o	o	o	o	o
oː	o, oo	oo	oo	oo
p	p	p	p	p
p'	pp, ꝑ	p'	p'	p'
ɾ	r	r	r	r
s	z, ç, s	s	s	s
t	t	t	t	t
t'	th, tħ	t'	t'	t'
t͡s	tz	tz	¢	tz
t͡sʼ	ɔ, dz	tz'	¢'	tz'
u	u, v	u	u	u
uː	u, uu	uu	uu	uu
w	u, v	w	w	w
ʃ	x	x	š	x
j	y	y	y	y
ʔ		7	'	'