Mexico is recognized as a Hispanic country, and indeed, Spanish is the lingua franca of the vibrant Latin American nation, spoken by the vast majority of Mexicans as their native language. But not all native Mexicans are native Spanish speakers. A whopping 8.5 million people in Mexico speak an indigenous language as their mother tongue, with a surprisingly large number even monolingual in their autochthonous language. You may have heard of Nahuatl or Yucatec Maya, but Mexico’s linguistic landscape runs far deeper, bringing us to languages like Zoque.
Zoque is an indigenous Mexican language, or, more accurately, group of languages, spoken natively today by approximately 110,000 people. It’s hard to determine the precise number of Zoque speakers due to classification difficulties, with some census respondents reporting their language as Sierra Popoluca or just Popoluca as opposed to Zoque. Regardless, Zoque remains as one of Mexico’s larger indigenous languages, with a local indigenous radio station even offering Zoque-language programming alongside its Spanish and Tzotzil programming. Spanish poses a threat to Zoque’s continued vitality, as most Zoque speakers have learned the colonial lingua franca, and few translation agencies work with the indigenous language.
Here at TranslationServices.com, we’re not like most translation firms, and we’re proud of our new Zoque translation team, offering translation services for all kinds of projects. Anyone who wants to see a free quote should reach out and request one!
Taking a closer look at the unique Zoque language
Zoque is one of the two primary branches of the Mixe–Zoque language family, which today is dwarfed by larger indigenous families like Mayan, Uto–Aztecan (Nahuatl), and Oto–Manguean but is thought to have historically been widespread throughout modern-day southern Mexico. Today, Zoque languages are spoken in pockets in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Veracruz, with Sierra Popoluca, boasting around 26,000 native speakers, standing as the biggest variety of Zoque.
Zoque languages are considered agglutinative and polysynthetic, which means they’re filled with suffixes that can change the meaning of a word or add grammatical information to a sentence. Word order in Zoque tends to be flexible, with subject-verb-object dominating in transitive sentences but other word orders also common depending on the context. In intransitive sentences, however, which don’t include an object, Zoque languages often position the verb before the subject. Another interesting feature of Zoque languages is their distinction between inclusive and exclusive “we”—basically, there are multiple words for “we” depending on whether the addressee is included.
Our Zoque translation team is experienced, flexible, and passionate.
If you’re looking for Zoque translation services, you’ve come to the right place. Most translation companies don’t work with this group of indigenous Mexican languages at all, but we’ve put together the best Zoque translation team we could, inviting skilled Zoque translators from across Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco, Veracruz, and beyond. We’ve ensured coverage of as many Zoque languages as possible, including Sierra Popoluca, Francisco León Zoque, Copainalá Zoque, and more. And for each of these Zoque languages, our team offers their translation services in both translation services, both to and from Zoque.
No matter what your project is, we’re determined to help. Our Zoque translators are native speakers of the different varieties of Zoque, and they love helping fellow Zoque speakers spread their messages around the world, as well as assisting people from around the world in connecting with the Zoque community. Some of our translators are best suited for business translation, including marketing material, while other members of our Zoque translation team are skilled academic translators who can handle technical jargon in a wide range of fields. Many of our Zoque translators also specialize in literary translation, converting traditional Zoque stories into English to spread to the world and translating English books, poems, and stories—as well as apps, websites, and games—into Zoque, promoting this precious language.
Our Zoque translators would love to help you with your project. So, why not message us and tell us what you’re looking for?