Zoque Loans in the Language of the Mayan Hieroglyphic Inscriptions: Problems and new Perspectives

Abstract

It has been noted in previous works that of all the Mesoamerican linguistic groups, none had influenced the Mayan languages as much as the Mixe-Zoques. However, both the data itself and previous academic approaches to the topic suggest that this statement requires precision, especially when it comes to the language of the Mayan hieroglyphic inscriptions, to which we owe the first documentary evidence of this contact. With the support of the comparative method and special attention to phonology, it will be demonstrated that the vast majority of loanwords, considered in the literature as Mixe-Zoquean, are actually specifically Zoque, which is in accordance with the existence of a Mayan-Zoque contact zone that we can trace from the Preclassic to the present time. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that some of the words that are assumed by specialists to be Mixe-Zoque loans apparently
are not and come from other languages or their similarity to hypothetical Mayan cognates can be explained as a coincidental resemblance.