Information from: “A comparative grammar of Xinkan” . Christopher Rogers (2011)
Awakening
Possibly exist
'Rememberers'
Chiquimulilla has recently become extinct; the last fully fluent speakers survived to the late 1970s. Sachse (2010:58) on reporting about her personal fieldwork affirms that semispeakers of this variety of Xinkan were living as late as 2000-2003; however, it is not clear how the competency of these speakers is to be measured from Sachses's report, principally because some of the reported speakers belong to the Guazacapán community and not the Chiquimulilla community.
Remembers are those older members of the Xinkan community who are themselves not speakers of any of the Xinkan languages, but who remember a relatively recent historical time when the Xinkan languages were used in public spheres of communication.
DATE OF INFO
2010
MORE ON VITALITY
Over the last 100 years there has been a sharp decline in the number of native speakers of Xinkan languages (see Sachse 2010:35-8 for a good overview of historical census figures of the Xinkan population).
LANGUAGE CONTEXT COMMENTS
In order to help them gain the political attention they needed and to organize the Xinkan community legitimately, others members of the community have become involved, and two governing organizations have emerged. The Council of the Xinkan People of Guatemala (COPXIG) was formed and set out to organize Xinkan peoples. Officers were named and a skeleton structure was put into place that was to unite the Xinkan area and the heirs of the Xinkan culture. A local linguist (a Kaqchikel (Mayan) speaker with training in sociolinguistics) has become allied with the movement and has aided the community with the formation of goals and objectives, though his efforts have been limited by the lack of training of the community and the lack of linguistic resources.
PLACES
Guatemala
LOCATION DESCRIPTION
Present-day members of Xinkan communities occupy the same territory on the Pacific coast of Guatemala in the departments of Santa Rosa, Jutiapa, and Jalapa as their ancestors did at the time of the Spanish invasion. However, initial research on place names indicates that the Xinkan speakers probably occupied a larger territory in the distant past.
Guazacapán lies at the intersection of the Guatemalan highland region and the Pacific Coastal Plains. Chiquimulilla is approximately 5 kilometers to the east, Jumaytepeque 35 kilometers to the north, and Yupiltepeque 69 kilometers to the northeast.
Information from: “Mayan Loan Words in Xinca” (187-190) . Lyle Campbell (1972)
Critically endangered
20 percent certain, based on the evidence available
1
PLACES
Chiquimulilla, Guatemala
LOCATION DESCRIPTION
Xinca is still spoken in Guazacapan (by less than 100 persons), and by only one man in Chiquimulilla (Vicente Morrales, 91). The language had a much wider distribution, but is now quite moribund. It was spoken in Yupiltepeque, but is probably extinct or nearly extinct there. The Yupiltepeque variety is fairly distinct from the others. Xinca was also spoken in Sinacantan, Taxisco, Jumay, Santa Maria Ixhuatan, and San Juan Tecuaco. Some of these may still have speakers.
Information from: “personal communication” . Lyle Campbell (2013)
Awakening
MORE ON VITALITY
Ceased to be spoken as a native language in the 1970s.