DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAYANCE LINGUISTIC STOCK. 607 
Juarros, writing in 1795, gives Chorti as the language of Chiquimula, Zacapa, 
Esquipulas, Jocotan, Tejutla, and Los Esclavos (stating in addition that Pokoman 
is spoken in Chalchuapa, Mita, and Jilotepeque). 
With the vocabulary of 21 words gathered by Stephens in Zacapa in 1839 and 
incorrectly identified by him as Chorti, a language which he correctly claims was 
spoken in Jocotan, Camotan, and the valley of Sensenti in Honduras, our trou- 
bles begin. This word-list was given by Stephens to Gallatin, who published it! 
and it was later incorporated by Berendt in a comparative word-list of about 600 
words, the manuscript of which, after passing into Rockstroh’s possession, was 
finally published in extenso by Stoll,? except for the omission of 4 out of Stephens’s 
original 21 words. Stoll compares these 17 words with the corresponding words 
of Pokoman and Chol, and the unmistakable likeness of the Pokoman and spurious 
Chorti in this list, and their common dissimilarity from the Chol (5 of the 17 are 
common to all three, and the other 12 are Pokom4n, and not Chol), caused him to 
filiate Chorti as a subdialect of the Pokom group, while Chol was properly branched 
with Tzental, Tzotzil, Chafabal, and the (Mayance) Chontal of Tabasco. Stoll 
was at Zacapa for a few days, but found no one still speaking the language; but he 
quotes a letter from Dr. Eisen, however, who had visited Copan in 1882, in which 
the latter speaks of Chorti “as of the greatest importance for the deciphering of the 
glyphs, as it must be the original language of Copan,” and comments on the 
great difference of the Jocotan mountaineers from the other Indians. Squier® also 
says the Chorti extended over into the Sensenti Valley in Honduras. 
Brasseur de Bourbourg in a note in the Popol Vuh,* says that the kingdom of 
Chiquimula was called Payaqui among the Toltecs or Nahuas, ‘“‘according to the 
Isagoge manuscript, cited by Garcia Pelaez’’; also that Chiquimula was the “native 
name of Copan,” a Nahuatl word, also written Copantli, and at which was spoken 
Chorti, “‘a dialect of Pokomam.” I can find no foundation, however, for any of these 
Nahuatl connections, nor am I able to verify the Pokoman relation in any way. 
Brasseur de Bourbourg himself knew no Chol, and probably relied upon the 
Stephens-Gallatin tradition, copies of both of whose works were in the Pinart sale, 
which included the greater part of Brasseur de Bourbourg’s own library. 
Our next material we owe to Ruano Suarez, who in 1892 presented to the 
Central American Exposition a study of Guatemalan dialects which contains a 
Pokoman vocabulary of some 800 words gathered in Jilotepeque, and a Chorti 
vocabulary of some 1,500 gathered in Chiquimula. He tells us that Chorti is also 
spoken in Jocotan, Camotan, Olopa, Esquipulas, and Quetzaltepeque, but that in 
1892 it was no longer used in Chiquimula by any of the Indians then living under 
50 years of age, being preserved only by a few surviving ancianos. Vor this reason, 
and also because of the adjoined Pokoman vocabulary, gathered by the same 
student at the same date, the Ruano Suarez manuscript must be counted as of 
great value; it is also in my possession. 
Senor Alberto Membreno, long Minister from Honduras to this country, who 
has for many years added scholarship and literary research to his diplomatic quali- 
fications, has next given us a 400-word Chorti vocabulary, in his Hondurenismos, 
first published in 1895.° This list, however, he tells us is only an extract from the 
Ruano Suarez manuscript just described. 
Finally, we owe to the Licenciado Atilio Peccorini, of San Salvador, a list of 150 
words, with a page of phrases, taken down by him from a native named Nazario 
Agustin at Camotan, in 1909, on the occasion of a visit to Copan.° 


1Gallatin, 1845, p. 9. Stoll, 1884, p. 108. ‘Squier, 1855, p. 385. 
4Popol Vuh, 1861, p. Ixxxv. 5Membreno, 1897, p. 261. SPeccorini, 1909, pp. 79-83. 
