The Politics of Bilingualism to Monolingualism in Guatemala / La política del bilingüismo al monolingüismo en Guatemala
(By Alberto Esquit Choy, guest author) | Lea la entrada de blog en español The following phrases capture a linguistic phenomenon expressed by Maya Kaqchikel youth in Guatemala: “My parents know and speak Kaqchikel, but they didn’t teach me.” “I don’t understand anything.” “I understand, but I can’t speak it.” “Now I want to learn it.” These expressions are heard from people mostly between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. The Kaqchikel population is located within the central highlands of Guatemala and, according to the 2018 census in Guatemala, the total Kaqchikel population is approximately 1,068,356. With respect to linguistic demography, the Inter-American Development Bank (2021) in its study about Indigenous Nations in Guatemala, titled, Demographic Challenges, Linguistic and Socioeconomic: A Comparative Analysis of the 2002 and 2018 Censuses , found that 72% of the population aged 80 or older speaks Kaqchikel, while just 27% of the population between the ages of 5 and 9 speaks