A comparative study of Eastern Cholan.

摘要

The purpose of this research is to apply the methods and procedures of historical and comparative linguistics to test the hypothesis that Eastern Cholan was the spoken language represented by the Maya script. Because the Eastern Cholan homeland is in the southeastern periphery of the Maya area, I chose to focus on the texts at Copan, a major Classic period site in this region. By completing a grammatical sketch of the two languages in the Eastern Cholan subgroup, Ch'orti' and Ch'olti', I was able to reconstruct a sketch of Eastern Cholan, their ancestral language. By applying the phonological rules and morphological processes reconstructed for Eastern Cholan I was able to identify Eastern Cholan phonology and morphology in the Copan corpus of inscriptions. This research advances the method of applying linguistic reconstructions to hieroglyphic texts and also advances the regional model of textual variation. I not only argue that the Copan script reflects a population of Eastern Cholan speakers but that specific grammatical forms unique to Eastern Cholan were extant in Classic period Copan. These forms include thematic suffixes, Set C person markers, and a grammatical system based on the +/- transitive +/- perfective distinction.