Indigenous Guatemalan Kaqchikel Dictionary Diccionario Cakchiquel Central y Español

Kaqchikel Dictionary

Book

Ruyán Canú, Déborah, and Rafael Coyote Tum. Diccionario Cakchiquel Central y Español. Guatemala, C.A.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano de Centroamérica, 1991. Text in Kaqchikel (Cakchiquel) and Spanish. Original cream pictorial wrappers. 383 pages. 8vo. Compiled by Jo Ann Munson L., this substantial bilingual dictionary documents Central Kaqchikel, one of the major Mayan languages spoken by Indigenous Kaqchikel communities in the central highlands of Guatemala and closely related to K’iche’ and Tz’utujil.

The work opens with acknowledgments, editorial preface, and a substantial introduction explaining why the dictionary was prepared and how its entries were compiled, followed by sections on Cakchiquel verbs and the standardized Cakchiquel alphabet. The main Diccionario Cakchiquel–Español is followed by a 140-plus page Cakchiquel grammar that treats accent, articles, gender, noun classes, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, expressions, conjunctions, negation, particles, prepositions, and verbs in systematic detail, giving examples in Kaqchikel with Spanish explanations. Later sections provide a facing Glosario Español–Cakchiquel derived from earlier SIL lexical work, rounding out the volume as both dictionary and pedagogical grammar. A series of appendices gives specialized vocabulary lists of numerals, plant names, animal names, parts of the human and animal body, kinship terminology, and Spanish loanwords offering insight into Indigenous classifications of the natural world and family relationships.

Light handling wear and toning to wrappers; interior clean and unmarked with pages bright and firmly bound. Overall very good condition. A scarce, institutionally important reference for Indigenous language revitalization and Mayan studies, and a key printed witness to Kaqchikel–Spanish contact and lexicon at the turn of the 1990s.

Item #22877

Price: $285.00