// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Sakapultek language say to its verb? You're tense.

Sakapultek
Sacapulteco
Tujaal Tziij
Native to	Guatemala
Region	El Quiché
Ethnicity	12,900 Sakapultek (2019 census)
Native speakers	6,500 (2019 census)
Language family	Mayan Quichean–Mamean Greater Quichean Sakapultek
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Guatemala
Regulated by	Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	quv
Glottolog	saca1238
ELP	Sakapulteko

A Sakapultek speaker from the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala

Sakapultek or Sacapulteco is a Mayan language very closely related to Kʼicheʼ (Quiché). It is spoken by approximately 6,500 people in Sacapulas, El Quiché department and in Guatemala City.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Glottal
			plain	sibilant			plain	pal.
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ts	tʃ		k	kʲ	q	ʔ
	ejective	(pʼ)	tʼ	tsʼ	tʃʼ		kʼ	kʼʲ	qʼ
	implosive	ɓ
Fricative				s	ʃ		x
Nasal		m	n				ŋ
Tap			ɾ
Approximant		w	l			j

• Plain voiceless stops are aspirated [Cʰ] in syllable-final position.
• /ɓ/ is heard as an ejective [pʼ] or a voiceless implosive [ɓ̥] when before consonants, or in syllable-final or word-final positions.
• /qʼ/ may also be heard as an implosive [ʛ̥] in free variation.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Open		a aː

External links

• The John William Dubois Collection Of Sacapultec Sound Recordings at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• Collections in the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America Archived 2019-02-02 at the Wayback Machine