Shpak' ich tat'

SOLOLÁ — I'm sorry, the owner isn't here, I told the man at the door this morning. Oh, he says, it's just that he used to hire me to work around the house. Hmmmm. What to do? We don't need any work done.

Within 30 minutes, I was beginning my first language "lesson" in the Western dialect of Mayan Kaqchiquel. I didn't wake up expecting to study Mayan glottalization, but how can you turn away such a friendly little man? L showed up wearing the traditional Sololateco man's dress (see example below): bright, multi-colored pants, a brown wool wrap around the waist, and a brightly colored cowboy-style shirt with decorative lapels and a white cowboy hat.

First, we had to negotiate about a price. Soon after I invited him inside my apartment, L raised the subject of payment. We weren't merely chewing the fat. He must be short on cash. Friday is market day. Vendors pour in from surrounding towns to sell in Sololá's open market. We went back and forth in friendly banter for a little while before agreeing on a price. When he suggested coming back to work again on Monday, I realized he must have liked our arrangement.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert in Spanish, but I can forsee challenges ahead if L is to be my teacher. Somehow he seemed to think that at 66 years old, he has a son who's 18. Shortly after mentioning this, he mentioned a daughter who's also 18 years old. Oh, I said, you have twins (gemelos, in Spanish)? Sí, he answered in Spanish. How many children, do you have? Three, he says. Hmmmmm. That's curious. Mayan boys around here seem to marry when they're about 16 to 20, and the girls about 14 to 18. My guess is, he's talking about his grandchildren.

So here's how to say "Good morning" to a man who is older than you: "Shpak' ich tat' ." To greet an older woman in the morning, you say, "Shpak' ich nan." If you're greeting a younger boy, you say, "Shpak' ich ta'." To greet a younger girl, you say, "Shpak' ich no-ee."

Kaqchiquel, typical of Mayan languages, uses lots of glottalization. In English, we use a glottal stop to cut off the air when we say, "Uh oh." The Wikipedia entry lists a few of Kaqchiquel's linguistic tricks,

• "The implosive consonants in Kaqchikel are usually voiceless, which is unusual for implosives."
• "Because of the synthetic-fusional nature of Kaqchikel, it is difficult to discuss the language's morphology and syntax as two separate entities; they are very robustly intertwined."
• "An interesting morphological process occurs in Kaqchikel to make up for the lack of a word meaning very. For example, the Kaqchikel word for large is /nim/; to say that something is very large, the adjectival form is reduplicated as /nim nim/."

When I mentioned to my friend, the homeowner, that L had come by, he vaguely remembered him. He was humored when I told him L claimed to have been his Kaqchiquel teacher. Everyone was his teacher, he said with a laugh. And so it must be, but what generous people to say of outsiders, "He speaks our language just like we do." Hopefully, the Kaqchiquel will be as generous toward me.

"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." — Ephesians 2:4-7