Introduction

The documentation of endangered languages presents implications for many areas of linguistic research and language community identity. Among these is a link between the documentary resources of a language and its historical reconstruction which in turn informs descriptive standards and revitalization efforts. The purpose of this chapter is to address that link concerning one aspect of Xinkan phonology: the glottalized consonants. The Xinkan language family is a group of at least four extinct languages that were once spoken in southeastern Guatemala: Guazacapán Xinka, Chiquimulilla Xinka, Jumaytepeque Xinka, and Yupiltepeque Xinka (ISO codes: xin, qco, qda, qhq, qsd). These languages have been greatly influenced by the extreme contact in the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area and exhibit borrowings from Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, Uto-Aztecan, and other languages in the region (see Campbell et al. 1986). The last speakers of the Xinkan languages resided in the departments of Santa Rosa and Jalapa, as shown on the map in Figure 2.1.

Currently, after years of repression, genocide, and marginalization the Xinkan community is engaged in efforts to revitalize their languages and to build a unique cultural identity (see Rogers 2016b, 2020). Due to the lack of speakers, or rememberers, these revitalization efforts are dependent on the available linguistic descriptions of the Xinkan languages. Following from this, both linguists and community members note that discrepancies in these resources are a source of confusion. For example, some grammatical features are not present in all Xinkan records. When a resource is missing features, it opens up discussions about the importance they (might have) had in the languages’ grammatical systems. Similarly, general typological linguistic characterizations of other linguistic features do not always match the specific Xinkan elements as recorded in the available documentation. This mismatch makes the descriptions appear to be biased toward some prescriptive standard rather than an objective treatment of the languages. This chapter focuses on resolving these types of discrepancies related to glottalized consonants and provides a clearer picture of the diachronic properties of these consonants in the Xinkan languages and a better understanding of their value for community revitalization efforts, thus highlighting the link between language documentation and historical linguistic methodologies.