We are pleased to announce the second session of our 2025-2026 M.A.R.I. Lunch Talk Series. This Friday, September 12, at noon, the PhD Candidate Rubén Morales Forte (Tulane University) will present "Beyond Bars and Dots: A Ch’orti’ Quinary System."
Abstract: Mayan languages occupy the forefront of research on indigenous linguistics. However, one of the least explored areas is their sociolinguistic composition. Most indigenous languages are deemed homogeneous in the literature. Such is the case of Ch’orti’, an Eastern Ch’olan language spoken in the Southeastern edge of Mesoamerica. Characterizing how different Ch’orti’ demographics living in the department of Chiquimula, Guatemala, speak the language has revealed an original, previously unreported quinary (base-five) numerical system. This paper presents the distribution of said system, concluding that it is prevalent among male speakers who are at least 45 years old and from the Western and Northwestern regions. Gender division stems from gender roles at the household level, while geographical distribution follows regional economic specialization. Furthermore, the system appears to be an autochthonous recent development—over the last 100 years—unrelated to the well-known bar-and-dot notation system used by the Classic Maya.
Bio:: Rubén Morales Forte is a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistic Anthropology at Tulane. His dissertation, "Who Speaks How?", focuses on sociolinguistic variation in the Ch'orti' Mayan language of eastern Guatemala. His interests include past and present Maya culture, as well as community engagement as an approach to transforming scientific knowledge. He has conducted archaeological, linguistic, and ethnographic fieldwork in Guatemala. He has also worked with Kaqchikel, another member of the Mayan language family, and developed a joint community project with the Regional Museum of Southeastern Petén at Dolores, Guatemala. Here, he is now conducting ethnographic work as part of the Dolores Slow Archaeology Project. He was a Mellon Fellow for Community Engagement from 2018 to 2020 and held a Dissertation Innovation Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (2024-2025). Before enrolling in the Ph.D. program, he earned an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane and a Licenciatura in Archaeology from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.
M.A.R.I. Lunch Talks invite guest speakers to host seminars at M.A.R.I. on a wide variety of topics related to the archaeology, history, and ethnography of Mesoamerica and other world areas. The events typically take place on Fridays around noon and can be delivered in English and Spanish.
