Protecting the Past for the Future

Dr. Hansen with mask on excavated structure

Threatened by years of abuse and neglect, the Mirador Basin needs help and it needs it now. The 400-year sliver of history between the biblical Old and New Testaments, sometimes erroneously called the ‘silent years’, packed Planet Earth with progress. Alexander the Great studied at the feet of Aristotle and, zealous to unite the world under Greek culture, conquered his […]

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How well do you know Chapín Spanish?

(Ser) Pura lata:

I certainly didn’t expect to get a free lesson of what I call Chapiñol, it is maybe 50 percent Spanish and 50 percent Chapinismos. His name was Miguel and he started throwing phrases like: tengo un gran clavo or me echan el muerto. I simply replied yes and/or no, but in truth I had no idea what he was talking about, “I have a big nail” What ???

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Google Translate to add native Central American languages

Google’s fast-growing online translation service will now be able to translate text into and out of Maya and Nahuatl, which are Central American languages that pre-date Spanish. According to the Economic Times, “Nahuatl is mostly spoken in southern Mexico and northern Central America, while Maya is spoken across Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala and Belize.” The newspaper also says that the […]

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June 2010 in Revue Magazine

Protecting the Past (photo courtesy of Dr. Richard Hansen)

On the cover this month is Dr. Richard Hansen, director of the Mirador Basin Project, in front of an archeological excavation going on at El Mirador. His interview by Joy Houston includes some historical perspective and some future plans for this critically important region of Guatemala. Matt Bokor takes us on two quick side trips: tranquil El Remate and the […]

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