Guatemala is a more linguistically diverse country than most people give it credit for. It’s true that the majority of the country speaks Spanish, which is the official language and the lingua franca, but what many people forget is that countless indigenous languages—mostly Mayan languages—were spoken in modern-day Guatemalan territory prior to Spanish colonization. We’re pleased to report that many Mayan languages are still spoken in Guatemala, with almost half of the country speaking one natively.
Some of Guatemala’s Mayan languages, like K’iche’, are spoken by several hundred thousand people, while others, like Tektitek, are spoken by only a few thousand. That’s why the few translation agencies that offer services for Mayan languages favor the bigger names, like K’iche’. But the number of people who speak a language doesn’t make one language better than another—and that’s why we at TranslationServices.com are so passionate about our Tektitek translation team. Tektitek is an important language, and we want to treat the Tektitek people with the dignity they deserve.
If you’d like to check out our rates for Tektitek translation, just email us and ask about a free quote.
More information about the Tektitek language
Tektitek hails from the Mamean branch of the Mayan language family, making it closely related to the Mam language. Unfortunately, the number of Tektitek speakers is low, with estimates ranging from around 2,000 to 4,000 native speakers. Speakers are mostly concentrated in Tectitán in the department of Huehuetenango, although some also live across the border in Mexico. While Tektitek is classified as “definitely endangered,” there are efforts to teach the language to children and preserve its vitality. Guatemala’s Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala is a major player in the revitalization of Tektitek and other Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala.
Tektitek shares the common features of the Mayan language family, including an ergative–absolutive alignment system, complicated verbal inflection, and a reliance on aspect rather than tense. In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive sentence and the object of a transitive sentence are marked identically, with the subject of a transitive sentence taking a special ergative marking. Tektitek verbs are inflected through a series of affixes that indicate the subject, object, aspect, and more, so independent pronouns are rarely needed. Tense markers are also generally not necessary because a combination of the aspect, mood, and context sufficiently reveal the tense of a verb.
Our Tektitek translators are passionate about translating their language, so don’t worry about how grammatically complicated Tektitek is.
We’re dedicated to providing a diverse range of Tektitek translation services.
Some clients may like to translate Tektitek-language content into English, while others may prefer to translate material in English into Tektitek. Our team is happy to provide both services! This way, historians, government agencies, and everyday Tektitek speakers can share cultural knowledge and stories—such as traditional folklore—from their language with the rest of the world, and language activists can translate books, games, websites, apps, and more into Tektitek to give speakers more opportunities to use the language and facilitate the learning process for youth. These are only a few examples—we’re ready to accommodate all sorts of Tektitek translation needs.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch and tell us what you envision for your Tektitek translation project today!