14 Ch’ol* words that Don’t Exist in English

woxwoxña moving spherically, an orb of fire / tsiltsilña softly shivering when the wind finds its way to you / tse’tse’ña giggling, cunning / puspusña the gush of pulsing air when you get into a car sitting beneath the sun / yolyolña gulp of a river / sorsorña static of a television / tsiñtsiña hollow chime of a bell at a funeral / wälwälña whimpering of sacred beings / ch’ojch’ojña ascending a bumpy mountain road, hitting divots and ditches, making the coins in the cupholders shake and jingle, bodies bouncing on-off the seats / wats’wats’ña how the gringos talk / xomxomña vacuuming in a meal / musmusña a misty rain / jomjomña how ants flow into the mouth of their hills, or the way a congregation filters from a church / lemlemña flickering, or rustling, like a candle flame, or cornstalk


*Ch’ol, a living Mayan language of southern Mexico. Pronunciation guide: x is pronounced like ‘sh’ in ‘shovel’; j like the ‘h’ in ‘house’; ä like the ‘e’ in ‘darkness’; apostrophes indicate “ejectives consonants,” produced by brief staccato force of air through the glottis.

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Carol Rose Little is an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. Since 2015, she has worked with Ch’ol communities in Chiapas, Mexico, and co-translates the poetry of Ch’ol poet Juana Peñate Montejo with Charlotte Friedman. Their translations have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Latin American Literature Today, Exchanges, and other journals. Her forthcoming essays in World Literature Today and Current Anthropology reflect on her experiences translating Ch’ol poetry and interpreting in U.S. courtrooms for Ch’ol speakers, reflecting on the ethical and cultural stakes of carrying another’s voice across languages.