Culture and Customs of Guatemala

Arts, Crafts, and Architecture

Arts

Crafts

Architecture

Museums

Customs and Traditions

Local Traditions

Etiquette

Dress and Behavior

Sensitive or Taboo Topics

Languages

While Spanish is the official language of Guatemala, no more than 70% of the population speaks and understands it. Many people, especially in rural areas or among the elderly, speak only one of the numerous Mayan languages practiced in the country, primarily K'iche', Mam, Kaqchikel, or Q'eqchi'. On the Caribbean coast, the Garifuna populations speak their own language or a "local" English.

In another context, it’s worth noting that a city like Antigua has built a reputation over time for its language schools. Each year, it welcomes hundreds of young people, many of them North American, who come to learn Spanish for a few days or weeks at one of the many institutions in the city.

Glossary

A few local words and expressions useful to know while traveling:

• Chicken bus: These are recycled American school buses, with the mechanics or condition to match, used as local buses by the population.

• Comedores: Local eateries where you can eat cheaply, though the food isn’t always very varied.

• Garifunas: Descendants of enslaved people from the Caribbean who mostly live on the eastern coast of Guatemala with their own language and culture.

• Hospedajes: Local hotels, usually basic (sometimes quite grim) and with little comfort, but very cheap to stay in.

• Ladino: A person of mixed European and Indigenous descent.

• Maras: Local gangs, particularly violent and active in cities, especially Guatemala City.

Festivals and Celebrations

Major Holidays and Public Celebrations

January 1: New Year’s Day.

March or April: Easter.

June 30: Army Day.

August 15: Assumption.

September 15: National Day.

October 20: Anniversary of the 1944 Revolution.

November 1 and 2: Day of the Dead.

December 25: Christmas.

December 29: Commemoration of the 1996 Peace Accords.

Books, Films, and Music