Mam language


Mam is a Mayan language spoken by about half a million Mam people in the Guatemalan departments of Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, and Retalhuleu, and the Mexican state of Chiapas. Thousands more make up a Mam diaspora throughout the United States and Mexico, with notable populations living in Oakland, California and Washington, D.C.

Classification

Mam is closely related to the Tektitek language, and the two languages together form the Mamean sub-branch of the Mayan language family. Along with the Ixilan languages, Awakatek and Ixil, these make up the Greater Mamean sub-branch, one of the two branches of the Eastern Mayan languages.

Dialects

Because contact between members of different Mam communities is somewhat limited, the language varies considerably even from village to village. Nevertheless, mutual intelligibility, though difficult, is possible through practice.
Mam varieties within Guatemala are divided into four dialect groups:
In addition to these, the dialects of Chiapas, Mexico may form a fifth dialect group, characterised by significant grammatical as well as lexical differences from the Guatemalan varieties.

Distribution

Mam is spoken in 64 communities in four Guatemalan departments and 18 communities in Chiapas, Mexico. Neighboring languages include Jakaltek and Qʼanjobʼal to the north, Tektitek to the west, and Ixil, Awakatek, Sipacapense, and Kʼicheʼ to the east.
Quetzaltenango Department
Huehuetenango Department
San Marcos Department
Retalhuleu Department
Chiapas

Vowels

Mam has 10 vowels, 5 short and 5 long:
ShortFrontCentralBack
Closeii uu
Near-Closei u
Midee oo
Mid-lowe o
Opena
Openaa

Like in many other Mayan languages, vowel length is contrastive, and short and long vowels have different phonemic values and are treated as separate vowels. The long versions of the back vowels, /o/, /u/, /ɑ/ vowels, transcribed as ', ', and are slightly compressed and pronounced as /o͍ː/, /u͍ː/, and /ɑ͍ː/ respectively, being partially rounded.
In the Todos Santos dialect the vowel structure is somewhat different. While /o/, /a/, and /u/ remain the same as in other varieties, short /e/ has become the diphthong /ɛi/, an audio example of this can be heard here:
In the Todos Santos dialect, the long vowels have evolved into separate sounds altogether. Long /aː/ has become /ɒ/, long /oː/ has become /øː/ and long /uː/ has become /yː/.
In some dialects vowels interrupted by a stop have evolved into individual phonemes themselves, for example in Todos Santos dialect
/oʔ/ has evolved into /ɵʏˀ/ and /oʔo/ has evolved into /ɵʼʉ/.

Consonants

Mam has 27 consonants, including the glottal stop:
/ɓ/ is realized as word-finally and when part of a consonant cluster in many dialects. In the Todos Santos dialect it is pronounced as as part of a consonant cluster and as word finally.
/p/ is realized as word-finally and word initially, elsewhere, in a consonant cluster and before short i, o, and u. It is pronounced as word finally in certain dialects. is an interchangeable pronunciation of .
/ch/ has evolved from /tʃ/ to /sʃ/ in most Mexican dialects and some northern Guatemalan dialects. Sometimes the /t/ sound is still lightly pronounced before the stressed /sʃ/ sound.
/t/ is realized as word-finally and before another consonant, elsewhere.
/k/ is realized as word-finally and before another consonant, elsewhere.
/w/ can be pronounced , , or word initially, , following a consonant, and , , or word finally. It is freely variable between in all other positions with being the most common pronunciation. In the Todos Santos dialect, /w/ is realized as either or word-initially or between vowels and before another consonant, as following a consonant and as word finally.
/q/ is realized as word-finally and before another consonant, elsewhere.
/tʼ/ is realized interchangeably as and word-initially and -finally, after a vowel or before .
/n/ is realized as before velar- and uvular consonants and word-finally,
as before and as before /ɓ/ and /p/, elsewhere.
/l/ is realized as word-finally, before short vowels and after plosives, bilabial, aveolar and retroflex consonants and elsewhere.
/ky/ is realized as in front of another consonant and kɕʰ word finally. It is pronounced as kʲ in all other instances.
/ ʼ / is realized as following /a/, /aa/, /e/, /ee/, /i/, /u/, /uu/ and /oo/. The standard pronunciation is simply after all vowels however in spoken speech is the common pronunciation. A similar trend can be seen in other Eastern Mayan languages. After /o/ it is pronounced as and after /ii/ it is pronounced simply as . Following consonants / ʼ / modifies each individual consonant differently as explained in the section above. In the Mam language every word must start with a consonant. In the current orthography initial / ʼ / is not written but if a word ever begins with a vowel, the word is treated as if it begin with a / ʼ /. The initial / ʼ / may be pronounced as either or in free variation.

Grammar

The most extensive Mam grammar is that of Nora C. England's A grammar of Mam, a Mayan language, which is based on the San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán dialect of Huehuetenango Department.
The basic word order of Mam is VSO. Most roots take the morphological shape CVC. The only possible root final consonant cluster is -nC.

Pronouns

Mam has no independent pronouns. Rather, pronouns in Mam always exist as bound morphemes.
Below is a table of Set A and Set B prefixes from England.
PersonSet ASet BEnclitics
1sn- ~ w-chin--a ~ -ya
2st-Ø ~ tz- ~ tzʼ- ~ k--a ~ -ya
3st-Ø ~ tz- ~ tzʼ- ~ k--
1p q-qo--a ~ -ya
1p q-qo--
2pky-chi--a ~ -ya
3pky-chi--

Phonologically conditioned allomorphs are as follows.
When Set A prefixes can also be used with nouns. In this context, the Set A prefixes become possessives.
Some paradigmatic examples from England are given below. Note that "Ø-" designates a null prefix. Additionally, ma is an aspectual word meaning 'recent past'.
The following Set B person markers are used for non-verbal predicates. Also, in statives, aa can be omitted when the rest of the stative is a non-enclitic.
PersonStativeLocative / Existental
1s qiin-at-iin-a
2saa-yat-a
3saat-
1p qoʼ-yat-oʼ-ya
1p qoʼt-oʼ
2paa-qa-yat-eʼ-ya
3paa-qat-eʼ

Paradigmatic examples from England are given below.

Nouns

The Mam language displays inalienable possession. Certain Mam nouns cannot be possessed, such as kya'j 'sky' and che'w 'star'. On the other hand, some Mam nouns are always possessed, such as t-lokʼ 'its root' and t-bʼaqʼ 'its seed'.
Noun phrase structure can be summarized into the following template.
The plural clitic is qa.
Noun affixes
Relational noun affixes
Locative affixes
Classifiers
Measure words
Measure words quantify mass nouns.
Mam numbers are as follows. Numbers above twenty are rarely used in Ixtahuacán and are usually only known by elderly speakers. Although the number system would have originally been vigesimal, the present-day number system of Ixtahuacán is now decimal.
1. juun
2. kabʼ
3. oox
4. kyaaj
5. jwe'
6. qaq
7. wuuq
8. wajxaq
9. bʼelaj
10. laaj
20. wiinqan
40. kya'wnaq
60. oxkʼaal
80.. junmutxʼ

Verbs

Like all other Mayan languages, Mam is an ergative language.
Transitive verbal affixes
Intransitive verbal affixes
Other verbal affixes
Aspects
Mam verbs have 6 aspects that are prefixed to the verb root.
Modes
Directionals
Directionals are auxiliary elements in verb phrases. They are derived from intransitive verbs.