The history of the Poqomchi’ language description

ABSTRACT This article presents an overview of linguistic efforts aimed at a description of the Poqomchi’ language (Mayan family, Guatemala). This language remains one of the least documented languages in the Mayan family despite the almost 500-year history of description, which was initiated by Spanish missionaries in the second half of the 16th century. The next attempt at description was associated with European travellers and ethnographers in the second half of the 19th century, followed by the efforts of American and European missionaries in the 20th century. Finally, native Guatemalan linguists who trained under the American descriptive tradition continue to work on Poqomchi’ at present. This paper seeks to describe the variety of approaches and to analyse the possible causes of imperfections in the descriptions. Abbreviations 3: third person; dat: dative; def: definite article; nmlz: nominalization; sg: singular.