The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically attested member of the Mayan language family

Mayan languages

The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...

. It is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 inscriptions of the Classic Era

Mesoamerican chronology

Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...

 Maya civilization

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

.
Classic Maya is a direct descendent of Proto-Mayan

Proto-Mayan

Proto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the Classic Maya languages documented in the Maya Hieroglyphical inscriptions.-Phonology:...

 and the common ancestor of three branches of Mayan languages - Cholan, Yucatecan and the more distantly related Huastecan. These branches have contemporary living descendant languages, which include the Ch'ol language and Yukatek (Yucatec) Maya.