Classical K'iche' was an ancestral form of the modern-day K'iche' language (Quiché in the older Spanish-based orthography), which was spoken in the highland regions of Guatemala around the time of the 16th century Spanish conquest of Guatemala. Classical Quiché has been preserved in a number of historical Mesoamerican documents, lineage histories, missionary texts and dictionaries, and is the language in which the renowned highland Maya creation account Popol Vuh (or Popol Wuj in modern orthography) is written.