[1] Nonetheless, while it is generally accepted that the Western Mayan family comprises Ch’olan–Tseltalan and Greater Q’anjob’alan languages, this has never been completely confirmed.
[3] Furthermore, some linguists formerly grouped Huastecan, Cholan–Tseltalan, and Yucatecan languages together, but this is now deemed erroneous.
[3][note 1] Ch’olan–Tseltlan speakers are thought to have first settled the Maya Lowlands after the diversification of Western Mayan some 3,000 years before present.
[5] By the third century AD, Ch’olan speakers formed part of an area of heightened language contact, centred about the Lowlands, which saw significant linguistic diffusion across Mayan and non-Mayan languages.
[9] The Spanish conquest of Peten brought about the extinction of Ch’olti’, one of only two Mayan languages not extant as of 2017.