- Description
- xix, 123 pages : illustrations, maps; 26 cm
- Summary
- "This book explores the articulation between "accent" and ethnic identification in K'ichee', a Mayan language spoken by more than one million people in the western highlands of Guatemala. Based on years of ethnographic work, it is the first anthropological examination of the social meaning of dialectal difference in any Mayan language. Romero deconstructs essentialist perspectives on ethnicity in Mesoamerica and argues that ethnic identification among the highland Maya is multiple and layered, the result of a diverse linguistic precipitate created by centuries of colonial resistance.In K'ichee', dialect stereotypes--accents--act as linguistic markers embodying particular ethnic registers. K'ichee' speakers use and recombine their linguistic repertoire--colloquial K'ichee', traditional K'ichee' discourse, colloquial Spanish, Standard Spanish, and language mixing--in strategic ways to mark status and authority and to revitalize their traditional culture. The book surveys literary genres such as lyric poetry, political graffiti, and radio broadcasts, which express new experiences of Mayan-ness and anticolonial resistance. It also takes a historical perspective in examining oral and written K'ichee' discourses from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, including the famous chronicle known as the Popol Vuh, and explores the unbreakable link between language, history, and culture in the Maya highlands. "--
- "This book explores the articulation between "accent" and ethnic identification in K'ichee', a Mayan language spoken by more than one million people in the western highlands of Guatemala. Based on years of ethnographic work, it is the first anthropological examination of the social meaning of dialectal difference in any Mayan language. Romero deconstructs essentialist perspectives on ethnicity in Mesoamerica and argues that ethnic identification among the highland Maya is multiple and layered, a diverse linguistic precipitate of centuries of colonial resistance"--
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 107-118) and index.
- Contents
- Accent and ethnic identity in the Maya highlands -- Orthographies, foreigners, and pure K'ichee' -- "Each town speaks its own language" : the social value of dialectal variation in K'ichee' -- A "hybrid" language : loanwords and K'ichee'-Spanish code switching -- "Ancestor power Is Maya power" : the uses and abuses of honorific address in K'ichee' -- The changing voice of the ancestors : missionaries, poets, and pan-Mayanism.
- Call Number
- JFF 15-836
- ISBN
- 9781607813972 (hardback)
- 1607813971 (hardback)
- 9781607813989 (ebook)
- 160781398X (ebook)
- LCCN
- 2014038541
- OCLC
- 900243284
- Author
Romero, Sergio.
- Title
Language and ethnicity among the K'ichee' Maya / Sergio Romero.
- Publisher
Salt Lake City : University of Utah Press, [2015]
- Type of Content
text
- Type of Medium
unmediated
- Type of Carrier
volume
- Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 107-118) and index.
- Research Call Number
JFF 15-836