| Alagüilac | |
|---|---|
| (unattested) | |
| Native to | Guatemala |
| Region | Motagua River |
| Ethnicity | Alaguilac people |
| Era | before 16th century |
unclassified orXincan | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
0im | |
| Glottolog | (insufficiently attested or not a distinct language)alag1249 |
Alagüilac is anundocumentedindigenous American language that is thought to have been spoken by theAlaguilac people ofGuatemala at the time of theSpanish conquest. It is also calledAcavastlan,Acasaguastlán, orAcasaquastlan, after the location where it was recorded.[1]
Brinton (1892) considered Alaguilac to be a dialect ofPipil. However, Campbell (1972) believes this is wrong. Brinton may have been misled by his sources: In 1576 Palacio reported the language ofAcavastlan, Guatemala, which he calledTlacacebatleca.[2] Juarros mentioned that "Alagüilac" was spoken inSan Cristóbal Acasaguastlán and "Mejicano" was spoken inSan Agustín Acasaguastlán.[3] This started a debate on whether Alagüilac was a relative of Pipil. Since Briton found four pages, written between 1610 and 1637 in aNahua dialect, in the archives of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán, and further since in 1878 Bromowicz compiled a list of Nahua words in San Agustín Acasaguastlán, Brinton concluded that Agüilac was nothing more than a form of Nahua. Nonetheless, the archeological evidence does not support the language of the area being Nahua.[4] Others have suggested that Acaguastlán could have been bilingual in Pipil and a Maya language such asPoqomchiʼ orPoqomam.[2]
However, Campbell argues that the presence of the Pipil or Nahua in theMotagua River valley could have been the result of forced population movements after the Spanish Conquest. For example, the neighboring town ofSalamá was a Pipil community populated by slaves brought in by the Spanish governor,Pedro de Alvarado. He also argues that theCakchiquels and Poqom expanded from the north into central Guatemala, where they encountered aXinca population, as evidenced by the large number of Xinca words in these languages. He suggests therefore that Alagüilac may have been aXinca language; many local place names appear to be of Xinca origin, such asSanarate, Sansare, Sansur, andAyampuc.[5]
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