to the Popol Vuh, the Título de Sacapulas, and other sixteenth-century Chronicles, the lords of the Tz'ikinjay or "Bird-House" nation or [[Calpulli|Amaq''']] who founded the Tz'utujil state did not come to the region until the Late Postclassic period. At least two Kaqchikel chronicles from that, the Annals of the Cakchiquels and one of the Títulos Xpantzay and at least one K'ichee' chronicle, the Tz'utujils led by the Tz'ikinjay controlled of the entire lake until the mid-fifteenth century, when they were defeated by the Kaqchikels, while the Kaqchikels were still soldier-subalterns subject to the K'ichee' state. According to the Kaqchikel documents, the Kaqchikels were able to conquer some of the Tz'utujil territory and divided the lake and towns in half with the Tz'utujils. The K'ichee' document, on the other hand, claims that the K'ichee' took half the lake. In Pre-Columbian times, the Tz'utujil nation's capital was a town near Santiago Atitlán known both as Chiya' ("At the Water") and by the name of the ruling chinamit, "Tzikinjaay," which was conquered in 1523 by the Spanish conquistador, Pedro de Alvarado, with the help of the nearby Kaqchikel.[7] The site of the ruins of the old capital, located atop a lake-front hill at the base of Volcán San Pedro, just west of Santiago Atitlán across a narrow inlet, has been known for centuries as Chuitinamit, "the walled-town above." Local Dialects Foreign linguists since at least Jon P. Dayley have tended to study and promote the "linguistically conservative" Tz'utujil dialect of San Juan La Laguna, especially when compared to the "phonological innovation" of the Atiteco dialect, which tends to diphthongize vowels, while every other municipal dialect retains a more original K'iche'an system of 5 long and 5 short vowels. It is noteworthy that the original Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín team that worked to document Tzutujil in the 1970s included at least two native-speakers from San Juan, alongside at least two from Santiago Atitlán. And while the main offices of the Tz'utujil linguistic community for the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala are located in San Pedro La Laguna, the ALMG-Tz'utujil used to promote the syllable-internal pre-consonantal velar fricative /-j/ (corresponding to [X] in the alphabet of the International Phonetic Alphabet), most common in San Juan La Laguna and the adjacent townships of Santa María Visitación, San Pablo La Laguna, and to a lesser extent, San Pedro La Laguna, as a critically distinctive characteristic of