To classify Guatemala as a purely Spanish-speaking nation is simply inaccurate. Spanish is indeed the lingua franca of the country, spoken by 93% of the population. But that leaves 7% who don’t speak Spanish—and not everyone in that 93% is a native speaker. In fact, it’s estimated that roughly half of Guatemala’s population is a native speaker of an indigenous language, generally a Mayan language. Guatemala is home to 21 distinct Mayan languages, and we’re proud to present our translation services for one of them: Sakapultek.
The Guatemalan government has recognized the value of Sakapultek and the other 20 Mayan languages spoken indigenously in the country and has established the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala to oversee work related to revitalizing them. We at TranslationServices.com commend the government’s efforts to preserve its minority languages, as many countries fail to take such measures. Private actors also fail these languages, with translation agencies working with Sakapultek remarkably scarce. So, we’ve decided to fill the gap by putting together our own Sakapultek translation team.
Dive into your Sakapultek translation project by requesting a free price estimate from us today.
Let’s introduce you to the Sakapultek language
The 21 Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala are of varying sizes, and unfortunately, Sakapultek is on the smaller end, although the precise number of speakers is unclear. It’s estimated that between 6,000 and 40,000 people speak the language, mostly in the Sacapulas municipality in the department of El Quiché. Sakapultek is related to K’iche’, the titular language of El Quiché and the most widely spoken indigenous language in Guatemala.
Like with other Mayan languages, Sakapultek grammar is difficult for a European language speaker to grasp. The ergative–absolutive structure, where the focus is on who or what is affected by an action, contrasts with the nominative–accusative structure in European languages, which concentrates on who or what is doing an action. In other words, Sakapultek uses the same marking for intransitive subjects and transitive objects. Sakapultek obligatorily marks both the subject and the object (when applicable) on verbs, so independent pronouns are usually redundant. Sakapultek also employs a number of particles used to soften, strengthen, or otherwise change the nuance of imperatives.
Sakapultek may sound complicated, and, well, it is. But don’t worry—our Sakapultek translators are native speakers with passion and experience.
Producing the Sakapultek translation you want
At TranslationServices.com, we’re dedicated to providing flexible translation services that fit each individual client’s unique needs. This means we’re equally willing to translate from Sakapultek to English as from English to Sakapultek. We find that historians, government agencies, and individual Sakapultek speakers like to translate from Sakapultek to share historical documents, traditional folklore, and contemporary insights with people from other parts of the world. Simultaneously, our English-to-Sakapultek translation services are popular among scholars with plans to hand out surveys to Sakapultek people as well as among language activists who want to increase the amount of material in Sakapultek by translating interesting content such as books, poetry, games, websites, and more. Our Sakapultek translators can handle all of these translation projects and more.
So, what are you waiting for? If you want Sakapultek translation services, message us today to get started!
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