There are six dialects of Tzotzil with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility, named after the different regions of Chiapas where they are spoken: Chamula, Zinacantán, San Andrés Larráinzar, Huixtán, Chenalhó, and Venustiano Carranza.

[4] Centro de Lengua, Arte y Literatura Indígena (CELALI) suggested in 2002 that the name of the language (and the ethnicity) should be spelled Tsotsil, rather than Tzotzil.

Aspirated and ejective consonants form phonemic contrasts: kok, kokʼ and kʼokʼ all have different meanings: ('my leg', 'my tongue' and 'fire', respectively).

Roots in Tzotzil occur in the forms CVC (tʼul "rabbit"), CV (to "still"), CVCVC (bikʼit "small"), CV(C)VC (xu(v)it "worm", the second consonant disappears in some dialects), CVC-CVC (ʼajnil "wife"), CVCV (ʼama "flute") or CVC-CV (voʼne "long ago").

The Tzotzil variant of San Bartolomé de Los Llanos, in the Venustiano Carranza region, was analyzed as having two phonemic tones by Sarles 1966.

Nouns can take affixes of possession, reflexive relation, independent state (absolutive suffix), number, and exclusion, as well as agentives and nominalizing formatives.

For example, k+ok kok "my foot", j+ba jba "my face" The absolute suffix is usually il but can also have the form el, al, or ol: kʼob-ol "hand (of some unspecified person)"[9] Verbs receive affixes of aspect, tense, pronominal subject and object and formatives of state, voice, mood and number.

The composition of attributives occurs in three ways: For colors: The basic word order of Tzotzil is VOS (verb-object-subject).

Tzotzil word-lists and grammars date back to the late 19th century, most notably in Otto Stoll's Zur Ethnographie der Republik Guatemala (1884).

Mass has been celebrated in the diocese in recent years with the assistance of translators — except during homilies — Bishop Arizmendi said in an article in the newspaper La Jornada.