Chiquimulilla Xinka
[aka Chiguimuliya,]Classification: Xincan
·awakening
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Awakening
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Possibly exist
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'Rememberers'
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Chiquimulilla has recently become extinct; the last fully fluent speakers survived to the late 1970s. Sachse (2010:58) on reporting about her personal fieldwork affirms that semispeakers of this variety of Xinkan were living as late as 2000-2003; however, it is not clear how the competency of these speakers is to be
measured from Sachses's report, principally because some of the reported speakers belong to the Guazacapán community and not the Chiquimulilla community.Remembers are those older members of the Xinkan community who are themselves not speakers of any of the Xinkan languages, but who remember a relatively recent historical time when the Xinkan languages were used in public spheres of communication.
- DATE OF INFO
- 2010
- MORE ON VITALITY
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Over the last 100 years there has been a sharp decline in the number of native speakers of Xinkan languages (see Sachse 2010:35-8 for a good overview of historical census figures of the Xinkan population).
- LANGUAGE CONTEXT COMMENTS
In order to help them gain the political attention they needed and to organize the Xinkan community legitimately, others members of the community have become involved, and two governing organizations have emerged. The Council of the Xinkan People of Guatemala (COPXIG) was formed and set out to organize Xinkan peoples. Officers were named and a skeleton structure was put into place that was to unite the Xinkan area and the heirs of the Xinkan culture. A local linguist (a Kaqchikel (Mayan) speaker with training in sociolinguistics) has become allied with the movement and has aided the community with the formation of goals and objectives, though his efforts have been limited by the lack of training of the community and the lack of linguistic resources.
- PLACES
- Guatemala
- LOCATION DESCRIPTION
Present-day members of Xinkan communities occupy the same
territory on the Pacific coast of Guatemala in the departments of Santa Rosa, Jutiapa, and Jalapa as their ancestors did at the time of the Spanish invasion. However, initial research on place names indicates that the Xinkan speakers probably occupied a larger territory in the distant past.Guazacapán lies at the intersection of the Guatemalan highland region and the Pacific Coastal Plains. Chiquimulilla is approximately 5 kilometers to the east, Jumaytepeque 35 kilometers to the north, and Yupiltepeque 69 kilometers to the northeast.