Skip to content
Language Lineage

K'iche'an

The largest Mayan branch: K'iche', Kaqchikel, Tz'utujil, Q'eqchi' and the Poqom languages. K'iche', with around a million speakers, is the most widely spoken Mayan language.

c. 1st millennium CE – presentThe central highlands of Guatemala, and the Alta Verapaz, Petén and southern Belize
On this page
  1. Highland Kingdoms
  2. The Popol Vuh
  3. Revival
  4. In its own words
  5. Where it's spoken
  6. Turning points

01

Highland Kingdoms

In the Postclassic period, the K'iche' and Kaqchikel built rival kingdoms in the Guatemalan highlands, with capitals at Q'umarkaj and Iximche'. Their ruling lineages claimed descent from the legendary Tollan, and their languages took words from Nahuatl, the prestige language of central Mexico. The Spanish under Pedro de Alvarado conquered them from 1524.

02

The Popol Vuh

In the 1550s, K'iche' nobles wrote down in Latin letters the Popol Vuh ('Council Book'): the creation of the world, the adventures of the Hero Twins in the underworld, and the history of the K'iche' lineages. The original is lost. What survives is a copy made around 1701 by the Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez, with his Spanish translation alongside. It is the most important surviving work of Maya literature. The Kaqchikel wrote their own history, the Annals of the Kaqchikels, in the same period.

03

Revival

In 1987 Guatemala adopted a unified alphabet for its Mayan languages, developed with Maya linguists, and in 1990 it founded the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala. Its leading members were Maya scholars, part of a Maya cultural movement that grew during and after the civil war. Q'eqchi', which has spread into the Petén lowlands and Belize over the last two centuries, is among the fastest-growing Mayan languages.

A sample

In its own words

K'iche' (Popol Vuh, 16th century)

Are uxe' ojer tzij waral K'iche' ub'i'
Are
this
uxe'
its-root
ojer
ancient
tzij
word
waral
here
K'iche'
K'iche'
ub'i'
its-name
‘This is the root of the ancient word, here in the place called K'iche'.’
Sources (1)
  • Christenson, Allen J. 2007. Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Guatemalac. 2.9 million
  2. Belizec. 20,000

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Contactc. 1000 – 1524 CEContested

    Nahua prestige

    Highland K'iche'an elites adopt Nahuatl titles and vocabulary and claim links with central Mexican Tollan. How much actual Nahua migration lay behind this is debated.

    Sources (1)
    • Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  2. Contact1524 onward

    The Spanish conquest

    Pedro de Alvarado's campaigns destroy the K'iche' kingdom and subjugate the Kaqchikel. Spanish becomes the language of power, and missionaries write grammars and religious texts in the highland languages.

    Sources (1)
    • Aissen, Judith, Nora C. England & Roberto Zavala Maldonado, eds. 2017. The Mayan Languages. London: Routledge.
  3. Writingc. 1554 – 1558

    The Popol Vuh written down

    K'iche' nobles record the Popol Vuh in Latin letters. It survives only through Ximénez's copy of around 1701, now in the Newberry Library in Chicago.

    Figures · Francisco Ximénez (1666–c. 1729)

    Sources (1)
    • Christenson, Allen J. 2003. Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya. Winchester: O Books.
  4. Revitalization1987 – 1990

    Unified alphabet and the Maya language academy

    Guatemala adopts a unified alphabet for the Mayan languages (1987) and founds the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (1990), run largely by Maya linguists. Standardisation and schooling in K'iche', Kaqchikel and Q'eqchi' follow.

    Sources (1)
    • England, Nora C. 2003. Mayan language revival and revitalization politics: Linguists and linguistic ideologies. American Anthropologist 105(4).