The following film was shot in February 2009 in Guatemala, among the Tektiteko. Here we are in Tectitan, where one of the villagers tells us about the culture of corn, the right time to sow, the harvest, the celebration that follows, and the contemporary changes undergone by local methods of cultivation, especially regarding the use of fertilizers and herbicides.

Let us remind that Tektiteko figures among the most threatened languages of Guatemala, as well as the country’s smallest Mayan community, with only 2077 speakers censused in 2002. The Tektiteko are mainly settled in the municipio of Tectitan, Huehuetenango Department, though their language is also spoken in Chiapas, Mexico, by around a thousand people.

Tektiteko belongs to the Mam branch of the Mayan language family and is affected by a wide influence of Spanish, as one may hear on this video.

Watch all videos in Tektiteko

NB: Should one of our users happen to speak Tektiteko, we would be more than happy to hear from you at contact@sorosoro.org, as we still have a significant amount of rushes in this language which have yet to be edited and published, in absence of translators…

Linguist: Juventino de Jesus Pérez Alonzo
Image & sound: José Reynè
Editing: Caroline Laurent