Evangelization and Language Change: A Transition from the Progressive Aspect to the Future Tense in Two Mayan Languages

Abstract

AbstractThis paper revisits the role that evangelization may have played in the diachronic development of Amerindian languages, with a focus on grammatical changes. Based on an analysis of written materials dating back to the colonial period and first‐hand fieldwork data, it discusses the semantic transition from the progressive aspect to the future tense that occurred similarly in the verbal systems of Q’eqchi’ and Poqomchi’, two Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala. Although the diachronic path is shared, the morphemes and constructions involved are clearly different in the two languages. The spread of this particular change from one language to the other is attributed to contact between their speakers that could be reinforced by the considerable number of translations of authoritative religious texts made by Dominican missionaries during the colonial period.