Long ago, Central America was bustling with cultural and ethnolinguistic diversity, home to a plethora of flourishing Maya and Aztec peoples and civilizations, each with their own distinct language and culture. When the Spanish took over the region, many of the indigenous peoples assimilated into Spanish culture, often as a result of repression. However, the original cultures and languages of Mesoamerica are still alive today—and in fact, close to half of Guatemalans speak a Mayan language as their native language.
One of these languages is Sipakapense, which is spoken by indigenous communities in western Guatemala. Though the indigenous peoples of Guatemala faced severe persecution from the government in the past, today, the Guatemalan government has recognized the value of Sipakapense and the country’s other Mayan languages and has set up an organization to help foster these precious cultural assets. Sadly, that still doesn’t mean that there are many translation companies willing to work with endangered languages like Sipakapense—but at TranslationServices.com, we proudly offer professional Sipakapense translation services.
The first step to a Sipakapense translation is requesting a price quote, which you can do for free.
Want to learn more about Sipakapense?
Sipakapense is one of Guatemala’s smaller indigenous languages, with the estimated number of speakers ranging from 4,000 to 8,000. Sipakapense speakers are concentrated in the Sipacapa municipality of Guatemala’s San Marcos department. The language, like all other Mayan languages, is grammatically complex, with countless grammatical features that would mystify most European language speakers. For example, Sipakapense is an ergative language, which means it uses one case marker for intransitive subjects and transitive objects and a separate one for transitive subjects.
Sipakapense word order is also completely foreign to English speakers, since the basic word order is verb-subject-object (VSO). However, like in most other Mayan languages, subject-verb-object (SVO) word order is possible with specific combinations of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Sipakapense also features not only two distinct passive constructions but also two distinct antipassive constructions, which are phrases that focus on the agent, perhaps even omitting the patient. Sipakapense is related to K’iche’, the biggest Mayan language in Guatemala, spoken to the east of Sipakapense territory, but Sipakapense differs from other languages in the K’ichean language branch by allowing long sequences of word-initial consonants.
Sipakapense may sound difficult to an English speaker, but our Sipakapense translators are native speakers who are well acquainted with this unique language and are passionate about translating it.
Let’s translate Sipakapense—for any occasion!
As a translation agency, we at TranslationServices.com value accuracy and flexibility. We want to make sure our clients are receiving the translation they want, whether that’s into Sipakapense or out of it. So, we’re happy to translate texts in either direction for a diverse range of clients—from historians looking to translate historical documents or traditional folklore from Sipakapense to English, to researchers who want their questionnaires translated into Sipakapense so their Sipakapense-speaking subjects are more comfortable, to language activists who want to increase the domain of use for Sipakapense by translating books, websites, apps, and more into the language.
We’re eager to start your Sipakapense translation—so just reach out whenever you’re ready, and we can get started.