Mayan languages
Encyclopedia
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
. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes
eight more.
The Mayan language family is one of the best documented and most studied in the Americas
. Modern Mayan languages descend from Proto-Mayan
, a language thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed
using the comparative method
.
Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
, an area of linguistic convergence
developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational noun
s instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. They also possess grammatical
and typological
features that set them apart from other languages of Mesoamerica, such as the use of ergativity in the grammatical treatment of verbs and their subjects and objects, specific inflectional categories on verbs, and a special word class
of "positionals" which is typical of all Mayan languages.
During the pre-Columbian
era of Mesoamerican history
, some Mayan languages were written in the Maya hieroglyphic script
. Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization
(c. 250–900 CE). The surviving corpus of over 10,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices
, combined with the rich postcolonial literature in Mayan languages
written in the Latin alphabet
, provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history unparalleled in the Americas.
According to the prevailing classification scheme by Lyle Campbell
and Terrence Kaufman
, the first division occurred around 2200 BCE, when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper, after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast
. Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Ch'olan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula
. Speakers of the western branch moved south into the areas now inhabited by Mamean and Quichean people. When speakers of proto-Tzeltalan later separated from the Ch'olan group and moved south into the Chiapas highlands
, they came into contact with speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages. According to an alternative theory by Robertson and Stephen D. Houston
, Huastecan stayed in the Guatemalan highlands with speakers of Ch'olan-Tzeltalan, separating from that branch at a much later date than proposed by Kaufman.
In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanword
s from Mixe–Zoquean languages seem to have entered the proto-Mayan language. This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec
culture. In the case of the Xinca
and Lenca
languages, on the other hand, Mayan languages are more often the source than the receiver of loanwords. Mayan language specialists such as Campbell believe this suggests a period of intense contact between Maya and the Lencan and Xinca people
, possibly during the Classic period (250–900 CE).
The split between Proto-Yucatecan (in the north, that is, the Yucatán Peninsula) and Proto-Ch'olan (in the south, that is, the Chiapas highlands and Petén Basin
) had already occurred by the Classic period, when most extant Maya inscriptions were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at the Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as "Classic Maya language
".
During the Classic period, all the major branches diversified into separate languages. Although a single prestige language was by far the most frequently recorded on extant hieroglyphic texts, evidence for at least five different varieties of Mayan have been discovered within the hieroglyphic corpus —an Eastern Ch'olan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands, a Western Ch'olan variety diffused from the Usumacinta region from the mid-7th century on, a Yukatekan variety found in the texts from Yucatán Peninsula, a Tzeltalan variety found in the Western Lowlands (i.e. Tonina, Pomona), and possibly a highland Maya language belonging to K'ichean major within texts painted on Nebaj ceramics.
It has been suggested that the specific variety of Ch'olan found in the glyphic texts is best understood as "Classic Ch'olti'an", the ancestor language of modern Ch'orti' and Ch'olti'. It is thought to have originated in western and south-central Petén Basin; it would have been used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. The reason why only two linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialect
s throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite. By the Classic period, the common Maya people must already have spoken a number of distinct languages.
During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous
languages were eclipsed by Spanish
, which became the new prestige language. The use of Mayan languages in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature, came to an end. Yet the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language. While a number of Mayan languages are moribund or are considered endangered
, others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society.
As Maya archaeology advanced during the 20th century and nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies spread, the Mayan-speaking peoples began to develop a shared ethnic identity as Maya, the heirs of the great Maya civilization
.
The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan
; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships, is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Mayans identify first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "K'iche'"; but they also recognize a shared Maya kinship. Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. This pride in unity has led to an insistence on the distinctions of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. But, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in the past, as scholars made a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in Mesoamerica in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages.
In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
(ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages), which was founded by Maya organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords
, it has been gaining a growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples.
has been proven to be an area of substantial linguistic diffusion.
A wide range of proposals have tried to link the Mayan family to other language families or isolates
, but none were generally supported by linguists. Examples include linking Mayan with Chipaya-Uru, Mapudungun
, Lenca
, P'urhépecha
and Huave
. Mayan has also been included in various Hokan
and Penutian
hypotheses. The linguist Joseph Greenberg
included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis
, which is rejected by most historical linguists
as unsupported by available evidence.
According to Lyle Campbell
, an expert in Mayan languages, the most promising proposal is the "Macro-Mayan" hypothesis, which posits links between Mayan, Mixe–Zoquean languages and Totonacan, but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis.
One point still at issue is the position of Ch'olan and Q'anjobalan–Chujean. Some scholars think these form a separate Western branch (as in the diagram below). Other linguists do not support the positing of an especially close relationship between Ch'olan and Q'anjobalan–Chujean; consequently they classify these as two distinct branches emanating directly from the proto-language. An alternative proposed classification groups the Huastecan branch as springing from the Ch'olan-Tzeltalan node, rather than as an outlying branch springing directly from the proto-Mayan node.
(also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec) is spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz
and San Luis Potosí
by around 110,000 people. It is the most divergent of modern Mayan languages. Chicomuceltec
was a language related to Wastek and spoken in Chiapas that became extinct some time before 1982.
. It is currently spoken by approximately 800,000 people, the vast majority of whom are to be found on the Yucatán Peninsula
. It has a rich post-colonial literature, and remains common as a first language in rural areas in Yucatán
and in the adjacent states of Quintana Roo
and Campeche
.
The other three Yucatecan languages are Mopan
, spoken by around 10,000 speakers primarily in Belize
; Itza'
, an extinct or moribund language from Guatemala's Petén Basin; and Lacandón
or Lakantum, also severely endangered with about 1,000 speakers in a few villages on the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, in Chiapas
.
, is spoken by 55,000 in the state of Tabasco
. Another related language, now endangered, is Ch'orti'
, which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala. It was previously also spoken in extreme west of Honduras
and El Salvador
, but the Salvadorian variant is now extinct and the Honduran one is considered moribund. Ch'olti'
, a sister language of Ch'orti', is also extinct.
Ch'olan languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the Classic-era inscriptions found in Central Lowlands. They may have served as prestige languages, coexisting with other dialects in some areas. This assumption provides a plausible explanation for the geographical distance between the Ch'orti' zone and the areas where Ch'ol and Chontal are spoken.
and Tzeltal
, both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal
). Tzotzil and Tzeltal have large numbers of monolingual speakers.
is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango
department, with small populations elsewhere. Jakaltek
(also known as Popti') is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalities of Huehuetenango
. Another member of this branch is Akatek
, with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán
and San Rafael La Independencia
.
Chuj
is spoken by 40,000 people in Huehuetenango, and by 9,500 people, primarily refugees, over the border in Mexico, in the municipality of La Trinitaria, Chiapas
, and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Tojolab'al
is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people.
Q'eqchi' (sometimes spelled Kekchi), which constitutes its own sub-branch within Quichean–Mamean, is spoken by about 400,000 people in the southern Petén
, Izabal and Alta Verapaz
departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. In El Salvador it is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations.
The Uspantek language
, which also springs directly from the Quichean–Mamean node, is native only to the Uspantán
municipio
in the department of El Quiché
, and has 3,000 speakers, one of whom is the Nobel Peace Prize
winner Rigoberta Menchú
.
, spoken by 150,000 people in the departments of San Marcos,Huehuetenango, and Todos Santos. Awakatek
is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán
, another municipality of Huehuetenango. Ixil (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the "Ixil Triangle
" region of the department of El Quiché
. Tektitek
(or Teko) is spoken by over 1,000 people in the municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing.
, the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 K'iche' Maya in the Guatemala
n highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango
and Quetzaltenango
and in the Cuchumatán mountains
, as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City
. The famous Maya mythological document, Popol Vuh
, is written in an antiquated K'iche' often called Classical K'iche' (or Quiché). The K'iche' culture
was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. Utatlán, near the present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché
, was its economic and ceremonial center.
Achi is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco
and Rabinal
, two municipios of Baja Verapaz
. In some classifications, e.g. the one by Campbell
, Achi is counted as a form of K'iche'. However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as K'iche'.
The Kaqchikel language
is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area stretching from Guatemala City westward to the northern shore of Lake Atitlán
. The Annals of the Cakchiquels
, written in Kaqchikel, is an important literary work dating from the 16th century that traces the history of the ruling classes of the Kaqchikel people.
Tz'utujil
has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. Other members of the K'ichean branch are Sakapultek, spoken by somewhat fewer than 40,000 people mostly in El Quiché department, and Sipakapense, which is spoken by 8,000 people in Sipacapa
, San Marcos
.
Poqomchi' is spoken by 90,000 people in Purulhá
, Baja Verapaz
, and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz
: Santa Cruz Verapaz
, San Cristóbal Verapaz
, Tactic
, Tamahú
and Tucurú
. Poqomam
is spoken by around 30,000 people in several small pockets, the largest of which is in the department of Alta Verapaz
. Formerly Poqomam was also spoken in El Salvador
.
(the common ancestor of the Mayan languages as reconstructed using the comparative method
) has a predominant CVC syllable structure, only allowing consonant clusters across syllable boundaries. Most Proto-Mayan roots were monosyllabic except for a few disyllabic nominal roots.
Due to subsequent vowel loss many Mayan languages now show complex consonant clusters at both ends of syllables. Following the reconstruction of Lyle Campbell
and Terrence Kaufman
, the Proto-Mayan language had the following sounds; the sounds present in the modern languages are largely similar to this root set.
*/r/ into [j], some languages of the eastern branch retained [r] (K'ichean), and others changed it into [tʃ] or, word-finally, [t] (Mamean). The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan show that they separated from the other Mayan languages before the changes found in other branches had taken place.
The palatalized plosives [tʲʼ] and [tʲ] are not found in any of the modern families. Instead they are reflected differently in different branches, allowing a reconstruction of these phonemes as palatalized plosives. In the eastern branch (Chujean-Q'anjobalan and Ch'olan) they are reflected as [t] and [tʼ]. In Mamean they are reflected as [ts] and [tsʼ] and in Quichean as [tʃ] and [tʃʼ]. Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into [tʃ] and sometimes [t].
The Proto-Mayan velar nasal *[ŋ] is reflected as [x] in the eastern branches (Quichean–Mamean), [n] in Q'anjobalan, Ch'olan and Yucatecan, [h] in Huastecan, and only conserved as [ŋ] in Chuj and Jakaltek.
The divergent status of Huastecan is revealed by a number of innovations not shared by other groups. Huastecan is the only branch to have changed Proto-Mayan *[w] into [b]. Wastek (but not Chicomuceltec) is also the only Mayan language to have a phonemic labialized velar phoneme [kʷ]. However, this is known to be a postcolonial development: comparing colonial documents in Wastek to modern Wastek, it can be seen that instances of modern [kʷ] were originally sequences of *[k] followed by a rounded vowel and a glide. For example, the word for "vulture", which in modern Wastek is pronounced [kʷiːʃ], was written
The grouping together of the Ch'olan and Yucatecan branches is partly based on the innovative change of short *[a] to [ɨ]. All Cholan languages have changed the Proto-Mayan long vowels *[eː] and *[oː] to [i] and [u] respectively. The independent status of Yucatecan is evident in that all Yucatecan languages shifted proto-Mayan *[t] to [tʃ] in word-final position.
Quichean–Mamean, and some Q'anjobalan languages, have retained Proto-Mayan uvular stops ([q] and [qʼ]); in all other branches these sounds merged with [k] and [kʼ], respectively. Thus the Quichean–Mamean grouping can be said to rest mostly on shared retentions rather than innovations.
Mamean is largely differentiated from K'ichean by a chain shift
which changed *[r] into [t], *[t] into [tʃ], *[tʃ] into [tʂ] and *[ʃ] into [ʂ]. These retroflex
affricates and fricatives later spread to Q'anjob'alan through language contact
.
Within the Quichean branch, Kaqchikel and Tz'utujil differ from Quichean proper in having changed a final Proto-Mayan *[w] and *[ɓ] into [j] and [ʔ] respectively in polysyllabic words.
Some other changes are general throughout the Mayan family. For example, the Proto-Mayan glottal fricative *[h], which no language has retained as such, has numerous reflexes in the various daughter languages depending on its position within a word. In some cases it lengthened a preceding vowel in languages which retained vowel length. In other languages it became [w], [j], [ʔ], [x], or disappeared.
Other sporadic innovations have occurred independently in several branches. For example distinctive vowel length has been lost in Q'anjobalan–Chujean (except for Mocho' and Akateko), Kaqchikel and Ch'olan. Other languages have transformed the length distinction into one of tense versus lax
vowels, later losing the distinction in a majority of cases. However, Kaqchikel has preserved a centralized lax, schwa
-like vowel as a reflex of Proto-Mayan [a]. Two languages, Yucatec and Uspantek, as well as one dialect of Tzotzil, have introduced a tonal
distinction in vowels, with high and low tones corresponding to former vowel length as well as reflecting *[h] and *[ʔ].
of Mayan languages is simpler than that of other Mesoamerican languages, yet its morphology
is still considered agglutinating
and polysynthetic
. Verbs are marked for aspect
or tense
, the person
of the subject
, the person of the object
(in the case of transitive verb
s), and for plurality
of person. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. There are no cases or genders in Mayan languages.
The meaning denoted by a noun may be altered significantly by changing the accompanying classifier. In Chontal, for example, when the classifier -tek is used with names of plants it is understood that the objects being enumerated are whole trees. If in this expression a different classifier, -ts'it (for counting long, slender objects) is substituted for -tek, this conveys the meaning that only sticks or branches of the tree are being counted:
Pronominal possession is expressed by a set of possessive prefixes attached to the noun, as in Kaqchikel ru-kej "his/her horse". Nouns may furthermore adopt a special form marking them as possessed.
For nominal possessors, the possessed noun is inflected as possessed by a third-person possessor, and followed by the possessor noun, e.g. Kaqchikel ru-kej ri achin "the man's horse" (literally "his horse the man"). This type of formation is a main diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
and recurs throughout Mesoamerica
.
Mayan languages often contrast alienable and inalienable possession
by varying the way the noun is (or is not) marked as possessed. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts inalienably possessed wetʃel "my photo (in which I am depicted)" with alienably possessed wetʃele "my photo (taken by me)". The prefix we- marks the first person singular possessor in both, but the absence of the -e possessive suffix in the first form marks inalienable possession.
s". This pattern is also recurrent throughout Mesoamerica and is another diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. In Mayan most relational nouns are metaphorically derived from body parts so that "on top of," for example, is expressed by the word for head.
Relational nouns are possessed by the constituent that is the reference point of the relation, and the relational noun names the relation. Thus in Mayan one would say "the mountain's head" (literally "its head the mountain") to mean "on (top of) the mountain". Thus in the Classical Quiché of the Popol Vuh
we read u-wach ulew "on the earth" (literally "its face the earth").
. This means that the subject of an intransitive verb is treated similarly to the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the subject of a transitive verb.
Mayan languages have two sets of affixes that are attached to a verb to indicate the person of its arguments. One set (often referred to in Mayan grammars as set A) indicates the person of subjects of intransitive verbs, and of objects of transitive verbs. They can also be used with adjective or noun predicates to indicate the subject.
Another set (set B) is used to indicate the person of subjects of transitive verbs, and also the possessors of nouns (including relational nouns).
Tense
systems in Mayan languages are generally simple. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts only past and non-past, while Mam has only future and non-future. Aspect
systems are normally more prominent. Mood
does not normally form a separate system in Mayan, but is instead intertwined with the tense/aspect system. Kaufman has reconstructed a tense/aspect/mood system for proto-Mayan that includes seven aspects: incompletive, progressive, completive/punctual, imperative, potential/future, optative, and perfective.
Mayan languages tend to have a rich set of grammatical voices. Proto-Mayan had at least one passive construction as well as an antipassive
rule for downplaying the importance of the agent in relation to the patient. Modern K'iche' has two antipassives: one which ascribes focus to the object and another that emphasizes the verbal action. Other voice-related constructions occurring in Mayan languages are the following: mediopassive
, incorporational (incorporating a direct object into the verb), instrumental (promoting the instrument to object position) and referential (a kind of applicative
promoting an indirect argument such as a benefactive or recipient to the object position).
Statives are a class of predicative
words expressing a quality or state, whose syntactic properties fall in between those of verbs and adjectives in Indo-European languages. Like verbs, statives can sometimes be inflected for person but normally lack inflections for tense, aspect and other purely verbal categories. This is very similar to the so-called Japanese "adjectives". Statives can be adjectives, positionals or numerals.
Positionals, a class of root
s characteristic of, if not unique to, the Mayan languages, form stative adjectives and verbs (usually with the help of suffixes) with meanings related to the position or shape of an object or person. Mayan languages have between 250 and 500 distinct positional roots:
In these three Q'anjob'al sentences, the positionals are telan ("something large or cylindrical lying down as if having fallen"), woqan ("person sitting on a chairlike object"), and xoyan ("curled up like a rope or snake").
affixes of several kinds, most of which specify transitivity or voice.
Some Mayan languages allow incorporation of noun stems into verbs, either as direct objects or in other functions. However, there are few affixes with adverb
ial or modal meanings.
As in other Mesoamerican languages, there is widespread metaphorical use of roots denoting body parts, particularly to form locatives and relational nouns such as Tzeltal/Tzotzil ti' na "door" (lit. "mouth of house"), or Kaqchikel chi ru-pam "inside" (lit. "mouth its-stomach").
s of Mayan or potentially Mayan origins are found in other languages, principally Spanish
, English
and some neighboring Mesoamerican languages
. Equally, there are words in both historical and modern Mayan languages that are known or suspected to ultimately derive from some non-Mayan language.
According to Breaking the Maya Code: Revised Edition by Michael D. Coe, 1999, the English word "shark
" comes directly from the Yucatec Maya xoc for "fish". The OED print edition describes the origin of shark as "uncertain", noting that it "seems to have been introduced by the sailors of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins
's expedition, who brought home a specimen which was exhibited in London in 1569".
Another word is "cigarette
". "Zik" is Maya for "smoke" and "zikil" is Chol Maya for "smoked", which in Chorti Maya is "zikar", the origin for cigar and thus cigarette.
The word "hurricane" is clearly related to the Mayan deity Jun Raqan
. However, it is probable that the word passed into European languages from Carib
. Whether the word passed from Mayan to Carib or from Carib to Mayan is unknown.
The complex script used to write Mayan languages in pre-Columbian times and known today from engravings at several Maya archaeological sites has been deciphered almost completely. The script was a mix between a logographic and a syllabic system.
In colonial times Mayan languages came to be written in a script derived from the Latin alphabet; orthographies were developed mostly by missionary grammarians. Not all modern Mayan languages have standardized orthographies, but the Mayan languages of Guatemala use a standardized, Latin-based phonemic spelling system developed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
(ALMG). Orthographies for the languages of Mexico are currently being developed by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
(INALI).
developed and used an intricate and fully functional writing system
, which is the only Mesoamerican script
that can be said to be almost fully deciphered. Earlier-established civilizations to the west and north of the Maya homelands that also had scripts recorded in surviving inscriptions include the Zapotec
, Olmec
, and the Zoque
-speaking peoples of the southern Veracruz
and western Chiapas area — but their scripts are as yet largely undeciphered. It is generally agreed that the Maya writing system was adapted from one or more of these earlier systems. A number of references identify the undeciphered Olmec script
as its most likely precursor.
In the course of the deciphering of the Maya hieroglyphic script, scholars have come to understand that it was a fully functioning writing system in which it was possible to express unambiguously any sentence of the spoken language. The system is of a type best classified as logosyllabic, in which symbols (glyph
s or graphemes) can be used as either logogram
s or syllable
s.
The script has a complete syllabary
(although not all possible syllables have yet been identified), and a Maya scribe would have been able to write anything phonetically, syllable by syllable, using these symbols. In practice, almost all inscriptions of any length were written employing a combination of syllabic signs and word signs (called logograms), similar to the way modern Japanese is written, as well as to the scripts used to write ancient languages such as Akkadian, Hittite, Hurrian, and Egyptian.
At least two major Mayan languages have been confidently identified in hieroglyphic texts, with at least one other language probably identified. An archaic language variety known as Classic Maya
predominates in these texts, particularly in the Classic-era inscriptions of the southern and central lowland areas. This language is most closely related to the Ch'olan branch of the language family, modern descendants of which include Ch'ol, Ch'orti' and Chontal.
Inscriptions in an early Yucatecan language (the ancestor of the main surviving Yucatec language) have also been recognised or proposed, mainly in the Yucatán Peninsula
region and from a later period. Three of the four extant Maya codices
are based on Yucatec. It has also been surmised that some inscriptions found in the Chiapas highlands
region may be in a Tzeltalan language whose modern descendants are Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Other regional varieties and dialects are also presumed to have been used, but have not yet been identified with certainty.
Use and knowledge of the Maya script continued until the 16th century Spanish conquest
at least. Bishop Diego de Landa Calderón of the Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán prohibited the use of the written language, effectively ending the Mesoamerican tradition of literacy in the native script. He worked with the Spanish colonizers to destroy the bulk of Mayan texts as part of his efforts to convert
the locals to Christianity
and away from what he perceived as pagan idolatry. Later he described the use of hieroglyphic writing in the religious practices of Yucatecan Maya in his Relacíon de las cosas de Yucatán
.
. Formerly spelling was generally based on Spanish, and it is only recently that standardized orthographic conventions have started to arise. The first widely accepted orthographic standards were set in Yucatec Maya by the authors and contributors of the Diccionario Maya Cordemex, a project directed by Alfredo Barrera Vásquez
and first published in 1980. Subsequently, the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (known by its Spanish acronym ALMG), founded in 1986, adapted these standards to 22 Mayan languages (primarily in Guatemala). Other major Maya languages, primarily in the Mexican state of Chiapas, such as Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch'ol, and Tojolab'al, are not generally included in this reformation. These latter languages sometimes are written with the conventions standardized by the Chiapan "State Center for Indigenous Language, Art, and Literature" (CELALI), which for instance writes "ts" rather than "tz" (thus Tseltal and Tsotsil). In Mexico, names of archaeological sites and other items of historical record retain the colonial spellings, rather than the revised orthography.
For the languages that make a distinction between palato-alveolar
and retroflex
affricates and fricatives (Mam, Ixil, Tektitek, Awakatek, Q'anjob'al, Popti', and Akatek in Guatemala, and Yucatec in Mexico) the ALMG suggests the following set of conventions.
One element of the revised orthographies that is not widely accepted, especially outside the Guatemalan context, is the conversion of proper nouns (such as names of archaeological sites, modern settlements, and cultures). Thus, the Cordemex continues to use the term "Yucatán" (rather than "Yukatan") in its preface, despite the fact that its orthography does not utilize a "c", and most scholarly archaeological texts continue to print the original spellings for archaeological sites and cultures that have been canonized in the literature over the centuries.
Shortly after the Spanish conquest
, the Mayan languages began to be written with Latin letters. Colonial-era literature in Mayan languages include the famous Popol Vuh
, a mythico-historical narrative written in 17th century Classical Quiché but believed to be based on an earlier work written in the 1550s, now lost. The Título de Totonicapán and the 17th century theatrical work the Rabinal Achí
are other notable early works in K'iche', the latter in the Achí dialect. The Annals of the Cakchiquels
from the late 16th century, which provides a historical narrative of the Kaqchikel, contains elements paralleling some of the accounts appearing in the Popol Vuh. The historical and prophetical accounts in the several variations known collectively as the books of Chilam Balam
are primary sources of early Yucatec Maya traditions. The only surviving book of early lyric poetry, the Songs of Dzitbalche
by Ah Bam, comes from this same period.
In addition to these singular works, many early grammars of indigenous languages, called "artes", were written by priests and friars. Languages covered by these early grammars include Kaqchikel, Classical Quiché, Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Yucatec. Some of these came with indigenous-language translations of the Catholic catechism.
Almost no literature in indigenous languages was written in the postcolonial period (after 1821) except by linguists and ethnologists gathering oral literature. The Mayan peoples had remained largely illiterate in their native languages, learning to read and write in Spanish, if at all. However, since the establishment of the Cordemex (1980) and the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (1986), native language literacy has begun to spread and a number of indigenous writers have started a new tradition of writing in Mayan languages. Notable among this new generation is the K'iche' poet Humberto Ak'ab'al
, whose works are often published in dual-language Spanish/K'iche' editions.
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
spoken in Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
and northern Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
, primarily in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
and Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes
Languages of Mexico
The government of Mexico recognizes 68 distinct indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages in addition to Spanish. According to the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples and National Institute of Indigenous Languages [INALI], while 10-14% of the population identifies as...
eight more.
The Mayan language family is one of the best documented and most studied in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
. Modern Mayan languages descend from 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:...
, a language thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
using the comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
.
Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
, an area of linguistic convergence
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational noun
Relational noun
Relational nouns or relator nouns are a class of words used in many languages. They are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions...
s instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. They also possess grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
and typological
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
features that set them apart from other languages of Mesoamerica, such as the use of ergativity in the grammatical treatment of verbs and their subjects and objects, specific inflectional categories on verbs, and a special word class
Lexical category
In grammar, a part of speech is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others...
of "positionals" which is typical of all Mayan languages.
During 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...
era of Mesoamerican history
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...
, some Mayan languages were written in the Maya hieroglyphic script
Maya script
The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...
. Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of 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...
(c. 250–900 CE). The surviving corpus of over 10,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices
Maya codices
Maya codices are folding books stemming from the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark cloth, made from the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild fig tree or Amate . Paper, generally known by the Nahuatl word amatl, was named by...
, combined with the rich postcolonial literature in Mayan languages
Mesoamerican literature
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a...
written in the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history unparalleled in the Americas.
History
Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-language called Proto-Mayan or, in K'iche' Maya, Nab'ee Maya' Tzij ("the old Maya Language"). The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Q'anjobalan is spoken today.According to the prevailing classification scheme by Lyle Campbell
Lyle Campbell
Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...
and Terrence Kaufman
Terrence Kaufman
Terrence Kaufman is an American linguist specializing in documentation of unwritten languages, Mesoamerican historical linguistics and language contact phenomena. He is currently a professor at the department of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh....
, the first division occurred around 2200 BCE, when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper, after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast
Gulf Coast of Mexico
The Gulf Coast of Mexico stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from the border with the United states at Matamoros, Tamaulipas all the way to the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula at Cancún. It includes the coastal regions along the Bay of Campeche. Major cities include Veracruz, Tampico, and...
. Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Ch'olan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
. Speakers of the western branch moved south into the areas now inhabited by Mamean and Quichean people. When speakers of proto-Tzeltalan later separated from the Ch'olan group and moved south into the Chiapas highlands
Chiapas highlands
The region of the Chiapas Highlands is located in Chiapas, the southern-most state of Mexico.Many pre-Columbian Maya civilization sites are located in these highlands....
, they came into contact with speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages. According to an alternative theory by Robertson and Stephen D. Houston
Stephen D. Houston
Stephen Douglas Houston is an American anthropologist, archaeologist, epigrapher and Mayanist scholar, who is particularly renowned for his research into the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica...
, Huastecan stayed in the Guatemalan highlands with speakers of Ch'olan-Tzeltalan, separating from that branch at a much later date than proposed by Kaufman.
In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from Mixe–Zoquean languages seem to have entered the proto-Mayan language. This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
culture. In the case of the Xinca
Xinca language
The Xinca language is a Mesoamerican language spoken by the indigenous Xinca people from communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador and in the mountainous region to the north...
and Lenca
Lenca language
The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of...
languages, on the other hand, Mayan languages are more often the source than the receiver of loanwords. Mayan language specialists such as Campbell believe this suggests a period of intense contact between Maya and the Lencan and Xinca people
Xinca people
The Xinca are a non-Mayan indigenous people of Mesoamerica, with communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador, and in the mountainous region to the north....
, possibly during the Classic period (250–900 CE).
Petén Basin
The Petén Basin is a geographical subregion of Mesoamerica, located in the northern portion of the modern-day nation of Guatemala, and essentially contained within the department of El Petén...
) had already occurred by the Classic period, when most extant Maya inscriptions were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at the Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as "Classic Maya language
Classic Maya language
The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically attested member of the Mayan language family. It is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian inscriptions of the Classic Era Maya civilization.- Relationships :...
".
During the Classic period, all the major branches diversified into separate languages. Although a single prestige language was by far the most frequently recorded on extant hieroglyphic texts, evidence for at least five different varieties of Mayan have been discovered within the hieroglyphic corpus —an Eastern Ch'olan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands, a Western Ch'olan variety diffused from the Usumacinta region from the mid-7th century on, a Yukatekan variety found in the texts from Yucatán Peninsula, a Tzeltalan variety found in the Western Lowlands (i.e. Tonina, Pomona), and possibly a highland Maya language belonging to K'ichean major within texts painted on Nebaj ceramics.
It has been suggested that the specific variety of Ch'olan found in the glyphic texts is best understood as "Classic Ch'olti'an", the ancestor language of modern Ch'orti' and Ch'olti'. It is thought to have originated in western and south-central Petén Basin; it would have been used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. The reason why only two linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialect
Prestige dialect
In sociolinguistics, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige or class within a society...
s throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite. By the Classic period, the common Maya people must already have spoken a number of distinct languages.
During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
languages were eclipsed by Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, which became the new prestige language. The use of Mayan languages in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature, came to an end. Yet the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language. While a number of Mayan languages are moribund or are considered endangered
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
, others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society.
As Maya archaeology advanced during the 20th century and nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies spread, the Mayan-speaking peoples began to develop a shared ethnic identity as Maya, the heirs of the great 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...
.
The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan
Mayapan
Mayapan , is a Pre-Columbian Maya site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately 40 km south-east of Mérida and 100 km west of Chichen Itza; in the state of Yucatán, Mexico...
; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships, is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Mayans identify first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "K'iche'"; but they also recognize a shared Maya kinship. Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. This pride in unity has led to an insistence on the distinctions of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. But, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in the past, as scholars made a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in Mesoamerica in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages.
In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 21 Mayan languages spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended particular efforts on standardising the various writing systems used...
(ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages), which was founded by Maya organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords
Guatemalan Civil War
The Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960-1996. The thirty-six-year civil war began as a grassroots, popular response to the rightist and military usurpation of civil government , and the President's disrespect for the human and civil rights of the majority of the population...
, it has been gaining a growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples.
Relations with other families
The Mayan language family has no demonstrated genetic ties to other language families. Similarities with some languages of Mesoamerica are understood to be the due to diffusion of linguistic traits from neighboring languages into Mayan and not to common ancestry. MesoamericaMesoamerican Linguistic Area
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
has been proven to be an area of substantial linguistic diffusion.
A wide range of proposals have tried to link the Mayan family to other language families or isolates
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
, but none were generally supported by linguists. Examples include linking Mayan with Chipaya-Uru, Mapudungun
Mapudungun
The Mapuche language, Mapudungun is a language isolate spoken in south-central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche people. It is also spelled Mapuzugun and sometimes called Mapudungu or Araucanian...
, Lenca
Lenca language
The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of...
, P'urhépecha
P'urhépecha
The P'urhépecha, normally spelled Purépecha in Spanish and in English and traditionally referred to as Tarascans, are an indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of the Mexican state of Michoacán, principally in the area of the cities of Uruapan and Pátzcuaro...
and Huave
Huave language
Huave is a language isolate spoken by the indigenous Huave people on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The language is spoken in four villages on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southeast of the state, by around 18,000 people...
. Mayan has also been included in various Hokan
Hokan languages
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California, Arizona and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were related to each other...
and Penutian
Penutian languages
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian stock or phylum has been the subject of debate among specialists. Even the...
hypotheses. The linguist Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis
Amerind languages
Amerind is a higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in 1960. Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three language families, the previously established Eskimo–Aleut and Na–Dene, and with everything else—almost universally believed...
, which is rejected by most historical linguists
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
as unsupported by available evidence.
According to Lyle Campbell
Lyle Campbell
Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...
, an expert in Mayan languages, the most promising proposal is the "Macro-Mayan" hypothesis, which posits links between Mayan, Mixe–Zoquean languages and Totonacan, but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis.
Subdivisions
The Mayan language family is extremely well documented, and its internal genealogical classification scheme is widely accepted and established, except for some minor unresolved differences.One point still at issue is the position of Ch'olan and Q'anjobalan–Chujean. Some scholars think these form a separate Western branch (as in the diagram below). Other linguists do not support the positing of an especially close relationship between Ch'olan and Q'anjobalan–Chujean; consequently they classify these as two distinct branches emanating directly from the proto-language. An alternative proposed classification groups the Huastecan branch as springing from the Ch'olan-Tzeltalan node, rather than as an outlying branch springing directly from the proto-Mayan node.
Geography and demographics
Huastecan branch
WastekWastek language
The Wastek or Huastec language is a Mayan language of Mexico, spoken by the Huastecs living in rural areas of San Luis Potosí and northern Veracruz. Though relatively isolated from them, it is related to the Mayan languages spoken further south and east in Mexico and Central America...
(also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec) is spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
and San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí officially Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is San Luis Potosí....
by around 110,000 people. It is the most divergent of modern Mayan languages. Chicomuceltec
Chicomuceltec
Chicomuceltec is a Mayan language formerly spoken in the region defined by the municipios of Chicomuselo, Mazapa de Madero, and Amatenango de la Frontera in Chiapas, Mexico, as well as some nearby areas of Guatemala...
was a language related to Wastek and spoken in Chiapas that became extinct some time before 1982.
Yucatecan branch
Yucatec Maya (known simply as "Maya" to its speakers) is the most commonly spoken Maya language in MexicoMexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. It is currently spoken by approximately 800,000 people, the vast majority of whom are to be found on the Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
. It has a rich post-colonial literature, and remains common as a first language in rural areas in Yucatán
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
and in the adjacent states of Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....
and Campeche
Campeche
Campeche is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in Southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the states of Yucatán to the north east, Quintana Roo to the east, and Tabasco to the south west...
.
The other three Yucatecan languages are Mopan
Mopan language
Mopan is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. It is spoken by the Mopan people. It is spoken in Belize and Guatemala.The other Yucatecan languages are Yucatec, Lacandon , and Itza....
, spoken by around 10,000 speakers primarily in Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
; Itza'
Itza' language
Itza is one of the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. The other languages in the Yucatecan branch are Yucatec, Lakantun, and Mopan....
, an extinct or moribund language from Guatemala's Petén Basin; and Lacandón
Lacandon language
Lacandon is a Mayan language spoken by approximately 1000 Lacandon people in the state of Chiapas in Mexico. Native Lacandon speakers refer to their language as Jach t’aan or Hach t'an. A portion of the Lacandon people also speak Tzeltal, Chol, and Spanish....
or Lakantum, also severely endangered with about 1,000 speakers in a few villages on the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, in Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
.
Ch'olan
The Ch'olan languages were formerly widespread throughout the Maya area, but today the language with most speakers is Ch'ol, spoken by 130,000 in Chiapas. Its closest relative, the Chontal Maya languageChontal Maya language
Yoko ochoco, also known as Chontal Maya, and Acalan, is a Maya language of the Cholan family spoken by the Chontal Maya people of the Mexican state of Tabasco. There are at least three dialects, identified as Tamulté de las Sábanas Chontal, Buena Vista Chontal, and Miramar...
, is spoken by 55,000 in the state of Tabasco
Tabasco
Tabasco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa....
. Another related language, now endangered, is Ch'orti'
Ch'orti' language
The Ch'orti' language is a Mayan language, spoken by the indigenous Maya people who are also known as the Ch'orti' or Ch'orti' Maya. Ch'orti' is a direct descendant of the Classic Maya language in which many of the pre-Columbian inscriptions using the Maya script were written...
, which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala. It was previously also spoken in extreme west of Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, but the Salvadorian variant is now extinct and the Honduran one is considered moribund. Ch'olti'
Ch'olti' language
The Ch'olti' language is an extinct Mayan language which was spoken in the Manche region of eastern Guatemala. It is only known from a single manuscript written between 1685 and 1695 which was first studied by Daniel Garrison Brinton. Ch'olti' belongs to the Cho'lan branch of the Mayan languages...
, a sister language of Ch'orti', is also extinct.
Ch'olan languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the Classic-era inscriptions found in Central Lowlands. They may have served as prestige languages, coexisting with other dialects in some areas. This assumption provides a plausible explanation for the geographical distance between the Ch'orti' zone and the areas where Ch'ol and Chontal are spoken.
Tzeltalan
The closest relatives of the Ch'olan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch, TzotzilTzotzil language
Tzotzil is a Maya language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. According to an INEGI 2005 census, there are 329,937 speakers of Tzotzil in Mexico, making it the 6th most spoken indigenous language in the country...
and Tzeltal
Tzeltal language
- External links :*...
, both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal
Tzeltal people
The Tzeltal people are the largest indigenous group mostly located in the highlands or Los Altos region of the Mexican state of Chiapas. They are one of many Mayan ethnic groups and they speak a a language which belongs to the Tzeltalan subgroup of Mayan languages...
). Tzotzil and Tzeltal have large numbers of monolingual speakers.
Q'anjobalan
Q'anjob'alQ'anjob'al language
Q'anjob'al is a Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. According to 1998 estimates compiled by SIL International in Ethnologue, there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. Q'anjob'al is a member of the...
is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango is a city and a municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The municipality's population was over 81,000 people in 2002...
department, with small populations elsewhere. Jakaltek
Jakaltek language
The Jakaltek language is a Mayan language of Guatemala spoken by around 90,000 Jakaltek people in the department of Huehuetenango and the adjoining part of Chiapas in southern Mexico...
(also known as Popti') is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalities of Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango is a city and a municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The municipality's population was over 81,000 people in 2002...
. Another member of this branch is Akatek
Akatek language
Akatek is a Mayan language spoken by the Akatek people primarily in the Huehuetenango Department, Guatemala in and around the municipalities of Concepción Huista, Nentón, San Miguel Acatán, San Rafael La Independencia and San Sebastián Coatán. A number of speakers also live in Chiapas, Mexico...
, with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán
San Miguel Acatán
San Miguel Acatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. The Mayan language of Akateko is spoken here....
and San Rafael La Independencia
San Rafael La Independencia
San Rafael La Independencia is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango....
.
Chuj
Chuj language
Chuj is one of the Mayan languages spoken by around 40,000 people in Guatemala and 10,000 in Mexico. Chuj together with the languages of Tojolab'al, Mocho', Akateko, Q'anjob'al and Popti' form the western branch of the Mayan family of languages. Chuj created its own branch about 21 centuries ago...
is spoken by 40,000 people in Huehuetenango, and by 9,500 people, primarily refugees, over the border in Mexico, in the municipality of La Trinitaria, Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
, and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Tojolab'al
Tojolabal language
Tojolabal is a Mayan language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico. It is related to the Chuj language spoken in Guatemala. Tojolabal is spoken especially in the departments of the Chiapanecan Colonia of Las Margaritas by about 20,000 people....
is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people.
Quichean–Mamean
The Quichean–Mamean languages and dialects, with two sub-branches and three subfamilies, are spoken in the Guatemalan highlands.Q'eqchi' (sometimes spelled Kekchi), which constitutes its own sub-branch within Quichean–Mamean, is spoken by about 400,000 people in the southern Petén
Petén (department)
Petén is a department of the nation of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest in size — at it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores...
, Izabal and Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and Baja Verapaz, and to the west by El Quiché.Also in Alta Verapaz...
departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. In El Salvador it is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations.
The Uspantek language
Uspantek language
The Uspanteko is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to K'iche'. It is spoken in the Uspantán and Playa Grande Ixcán municipios, in the Department El Quiché. It is also one of only three Mayan languages to have developed contrastive tone...
, which also springs directly from the Quichean–Mamean node, is native only to the Uspantán
Uspantán
Uspantán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. It is one of the largest municipalities of El Quiché and stretches from the mountainous highlands in the South to the tropical lowlands in the North. The municipal seat is in Villa de San Miguel Uspantán with a population of 2,800...
municipio
Municipalities of Guatemala
The departments of Guatemala are divided into 332 municipalities or municipios. The municipalities are listed below, by department:-Alta Verapaz Department:*Cahabón*Chahal*Chisec*Cobán*Fray Bartolomé de las Casas*Lanquín*Panzós*Raxruha...
in the department of El Quiché
Quiché (department)
El Quiché is a department of Guatemala.El Quiché department is in the heartland of the Quiché people, to the north-west of Guatemala City. The capital is Santa Cruz del Quiché.-Population:...
, and has 3,000 speakers, one of whom is the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is an indigenous Guatemalan, of the K'iche' ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War , and to promoting indigenous rights in the country...
.
Mamean
The largest language in this branch is MamMam language
Mam is a Mayan language with almost 480,000 speakers as of 2002, spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas and the Guatemalan departments of Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango and San Marcos....
, spoken by 150,000 people in the departments of San Marcos,Huehuetenango, and Todos Santos. Awakatek
Awakatek language
Qa'yol also known as Awakatek, is a Mayan language spoken in primarily Huehuetenango, Guatemala in and around Aguacatán. It is a living language with some 18,000 speakers....
is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán
Aguacatán
Aguacatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is situated at 1670m above sea level. It has a population of 41,000. It covers a terrain of 300km2.-Geography:...
, another municipality of Huehuetenango. Ixil (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the "Ixil Triangle
Ixil Triangle
The Ixil Community is a name given to three neighbouring towns in the Quiché department in the western highlands of Guatemala. These towns are Santa Maria Nebaj, San Juan Cotzal, and San Gaspar Chajul. The area's population is predominantly of Ixil descent...
" region of the department of El Quiché
Quiché (department)
El Quiché is a department of Guatemala.El Quiché department is in the heartland of the Quiché people, to the north-west of Guatemala City. The capital is Santa Cruz del Quiché.-Population:...
. Tektitek
Tektitek language
The Tektitek language is a member of the Quichean–Mamean branch of the Mayan language family. It is very closely related to the Mam language. Tektikek is spoken by the Tektitek people, which are primarily settled in the municipality of Tectitán, department of Huehuetenango. A number of Tektitek...
(or Teko) is spoken by over 1,000 people in the municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing.
Core Quichean
K'iche' (Quiché)K'iche' language
The K’iche’ language is a part of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by many K'iche' people in the central highlands of Guatemala. With close to a million speakers , it is the second-most widely spoken language in the country after Spanish...
, the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 K'iche' Maya in the Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
n highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango
Chichicastenango
Chichicastenango, also known as Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, is a town in the El Quiché department of Guatemala, known for its traditional K'iche' Maya culture. The Spanish conquistadors gave the town its name from the Nahuatl name used by their soldiers from Tlaxcala: Tzitzicaztenanco, or City...
and Quetzaltenango
Quetzaltenango
Quetzaltenango, also commonly known by its indigenous name, Xelajú , or more commonly, Xela , is the second largest city of Guatemala. It is both the capital of Quetzaltenango Department and the municipal seat of Quetzaltenango municipality....
and in the Cuchumatán mountains
Sierra de los Cuchumatanes
The Sierra de los Cuchumatanes is the highest non-volcanic mountain range in Central America. Its elevations range from 500 m to over 3,800 m, and it covers a total area of ±16,350 km². With an area of 1,500 km² situated above 3,000 m, it is also the most extensive highland region in Central...
, as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City
Guatemala City
Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...
. The famous Maya mythological document, Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
, is written in an antiquated K'iche' often called Classical K'iche' (or Quiché). The K'iche' culture
K'iche' Kingdom of Q'umarkaj
The K'iche' Kingdom of Q'umarkaj was a state in the highlands of modern day Guatemala which was founded by the K'iche' Maya in the thirteenth century, and which expanded through the fifteenth century until it was conquered by Spanish and Nahua forces led by Pedro de Alvarado in 1524.The K'iche'...
was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. Utatlán, near the present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché
Santa Cruz del Quiché
Santa Cruz del Quiché is a city in Guatemala. It serves as the capital of El Quiché department and the municipal seat of Santa Cruz del Quiché municipality.The city is located at , at an elevation of 2,021 m above sea level...
, was its economic and ceremonial center.
Achi is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco
Cubulco
Cubulco is a small town located in the Guatemalan department of Baja Verapaz, at . It serves as the administrative seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. The municipality covers 444 km² and, in 2004, had a population of around 42,000. The local people are predominantly Achi Maya...
and Rabinal
Rabinal
Rabinal is a small town located in the Guatemalan department of Baja Verapaz, at . It serves as the administrative seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. The municipality covers 504 km² and, in 2004, had a population of around 36,000...
, two municipios of Baja Verapaz
Baja Verapaz
Baja Verapaz is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá.Baja Verapaz houses the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplendent Quetzal....
. In some classifications, e.g. the one by Campbell
Lyle Campbell
Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...
, Achi is counted as a form of K'iche'. However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as K'iche'.
The Kaqchikel language
Kaqchikel language
The Kaqchikel, or Kaqchiquel, language is an indigenous Mesoamerican language and a member of the Quichean–Mamean branch of the Mayan languages family. It is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala...
is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area stretching from Guatemala City westward to the northern shore of Lake Atitlán
Lago de Atitlán
Lake Atitlán is a large endorheic lake in the Guatemalan Highlands. Atitlan is recognized to be the deepest lake in Central America with maximum depth about 340 meters. The lake is shaped by deep escarpments which surround it and by three volcanos on its southern flank...
. The Annals of the Cakchiquels
Annals of the Cakchiquels
The Annals of the Cakchiquels , is a manuscript written in Kaqchikel, by Francisco Hernández Arana Xajilá in 1571, and completed by his grand son, Francisco Rojas in 1604...
, written in Kaqchikel, is an important literary work dating from the 16th century that traces the history of the ruling classes of the Kaqchikel people.
Tz'utujil
Tz'utujil language
Tz'utujil is a Mayan language spoken by the Tz'utujil people in the region to the south of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Tz'utujil is closely related to its larger neighbors, Kaqchikel and K'iche'....
has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. Other members of the K'ichean branch are Sakapultek, spoken by somewhat fewer than 40,000 people mostly in El Quiché department, and Sipakapense, which is spoken by 8,000 people in Sipacapa
Sipacapa
Sipacapa is a municipality in the San Marcos department, situated in the Western highlands of Guatemala. Sipacapa's population of around 14,000 is spread among 14 village communities, skattered over mountainous terrain...
, San Marcos
San Marcos (department)
San Marcos is a department in Guatemala. The capital is the city of San Marcos.-Departmental history:The department was created by a governmental decree on 8 May 1866, together with Huehuetenango, Izabal and Petén departments...
.
Poqom
The Poqom languages are closely related to Core Quichean, with which they constitute a Poqom-K'ichean sub-branch on the Quichean–Mamean node.Poqomchi' is spoken by 90,000 people in Purulhá
Purulhá
Purulhá is a municipality in the Baja Verapaz department of Guatemala. It is situated at 1570 m above sea level. It contains 36,600 people. It covers a terrain of 248 km². The annual festival is June 10-June 13.-External links:*...
, Baja Verapaz
Baja Verapaz
Baja Verapaz is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá.Baja Verapaz houses the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplendent Quetzal....
, and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and Baja Verapaz, and to the west by El Quiché.Also in Alta Verapaz...
: Santa Cruz Verapaz
Santa Cruz Verapaz
Santa Cruz Verapaz is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. It is situated at 1406 m above sea level. It contains 19,000 people. It covers a terrain of 48 km². The annual festival is May 1-May 5.-External links:*...
, San Cristóbal Verapaz
San Cristóbal Verapaz
San Cristóbal Verapaz is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz....
, Tactic
Tactic (municipality)
Tactic is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. It is situated at 1,465 m above sea level. It has a population of 17,555, and covers a terrain of 85 km². The languages spoken in Tactic are predominantly Spanish, Poqomchí, and Q'eqchi'....
, Tamahú
Tamahú
Tamahú is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz....
and Tucurú
Tucurú
Tucurú is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz....
. Poqomam
Poqomam language
Poqomam is a Mayan language, closely related to Poqomchi’. It is spoken by approximately 49,000 people in several small pockets in Guatemala, the largest of which is in the Alta Verapaz department but which extend to El Salvador....
is spoken by around 30,000 people in several small pockets, the largest of which is in the department of Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and Baja Verapaz, and to the west by El Quiché.Also in Alta Verapaz...
. Formerly Poqomam was also spoken in El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
.
Proto-Mayan sound system
Proto-MayanProto-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:...
(the common ancestor of the Mayan languages as reconstructed using the comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
) has a predominant CVC syllable structure, only allowing consonant clusters across syllable boundaries. Most Proto-Mayan roots were monosyllabic except for a few disyllabic nominal roots.
Due to subsequent vowel loss many Mayan languages now show complex consonant clusters at both ends of syllables. Following the reconstruction of Lyle Campbell
Lyle Campbell
Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...
and Terrence Kaufman
Terrence Kaufman
Terrence Kaufman is an American linguist specializing in documentation of unwritten languages, Mesoamerican historical linguistics and language contact phenomena. He is currently a professor at the department of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh....
, the Proto-Mayan language had the following sounds; the sounds present in the modern languages are largely similar to this root set.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Long Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Short Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Long Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Short Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Long Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
|
| High Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
[i] | [iː] | [u] | [uː] | ||
| Mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
[e] | [eː] | [o] | [oː] | ||
| Low Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
[a] | [aː] | ||||
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Implosive Implosive consonant Implosive consonants are stops with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can... |
Plain | Ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
Plain | Ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
Plain | Ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
Plain | Ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
Plain | ||
| Stops Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
[p] | [ɓ] | [t] | [tʼ] | [tʲ] | [tʲʼ] | [k] | [kʼ] | [q] | [qʼ] | [ʔ] | |
| Affricates Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
[ts] | [tsʼ] | [tʃ] | [tʃʼ] | ||||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
[s] | [ʃ] | [χ] | [h] | ||||||||
| Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
[m] | [n] | [ŋ] | |||||||||
| Liquids Liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:... |
[l] [r] | |||||||||||
| Glides Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
[j] | [w] | ||||||||||
Phonological evolution of Proto-Mayan
The classification of Mayan languages is based on changes shared between groups of languages. For example, languages of the western group (such as Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan) all changed the Proto-Mayan phonemePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
*/r/ into [j], some languages of the eastern branch retained [r] (K'ichean), and others changed it into [tʃ] or, word-finally, [t] (Mamean). The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan show that they separated from the other Mayan languages before the changes found in other branches had taken place.
| Proto-Mayan | Wastek | Yucatec | Mopan | Tzeltal | Chuj | Q'anjob'al | Mam | Ixil | K'iche' | Kaqchikel | Poqomam | Q'eqchi' |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *[raʔʃ] "green" |
[jaʃ] | [jaʔʃ] | [jaʔaʃ] | [jaʃ] | [jaʔaʃ] | [jaʃ] | [tʃaʃ] | [tʃaʔʃ] | [raʃ] | [rɐʃ] | [raʃ] | [raːʃ] |
| *[war] "sleep" |
[waj] | [waj] | [wɐjn] | [waj] | [waj] | [waj] | [wit] (Awakatek) |
[wat] | [war] | [war] | [wɨr] | [war] |
The palatalized plosives [tʲʼ] and [tʲ] are not found in any of the modern families. Instead they are reflected differently in different branches, allowing a reconstruction of these phonemes as palatalized plosives. In the eastern branch (Chujean-Q'anjobalan and Ch'olan) they are reflected as [t] and [tʼ]. In Mamean they are reflected as [ts] and [tsʼ] and in Quichean as [tʃ] and [tʃʼ]. Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into [tʃ] and sometimes [t].
| Proto-Mayan | Yucatec | Q'anjob'al | Popti' | Mam | Ixil | K'iche' | Kaqchikel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *[tʲeːʔ] "tree" |
[tʃeʔ] | [teʔ] | [teʔ] | [tseːʔ] | [tseʔ] | [tʃeːʔ] | [tʃeʔ] |
| *[tʲaʔŋ] "ashes" |
[taʔn] | [tan] | [taŋ] | [tsaːx] | [tsaʔ] | [tʃaːx] | [tʃax] |
The Proto-Mayan velar nasal *[ŋ] is reflected as [x] in the eastern branches (Quichean–Mamean), [n] in Q'anjobalan, Ch'olan and Yucatecan, [h] in Huastecan, and only conserved as [ŋ] in Chuj and Jakaltek.
| Proto-Mayan | Yucatec | Q'anjobal | Jakaltek | Ixil | K'iche' |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *[ŋeːh] "tail" |
[neːh] | [ne] | [ŋe] | [xeh] | [xeːʔ] |
Other innovations
The subgrouping of the Mayan family is based on shared linguistic innovations. Some phonological developments that have been used to establish the current classification are described here.The divergent status of Huastecan is revealed by a number of innovations not shared by other groups. Huastecan is the only branch to have changed Proto-Mayan *[w] into [b]. Wastek (but not Chicomuceltec) is also the only Mayan language to have a phonemic labialized velar phoneme [kʷ]. However, this is known to be a postcolonial development: comparing colonial documents in Wastek to modern Wastek, it can be seen that instances of modern [kʷ] were originally sequences of *[k] followed by a rounded vowel and a glide. For example, the word for "vulture", which in modern Wastek is pronounced [kʷiːʃ], was written
The grouping together of the Ch'olan and Yucatecan branches is partly based on the innovative change of short *[a] to [ɨ]. All Cholan languages have changed the Proto-Mayan long vowels *[eː] and *[oː] to [i] and [u] respectively. The independent status of Yucatecan is evident in that all Yucatecan languages shifted proto-Mayan *[t] to [tʃ] in word-final position.
Quichean–Mamean, and some Q'anjobalan languages, have retained Proto-Mayan uvular stops ([q] and [qʼ]); in all other branches these sounds merged with [k] and [kʼ], respectively. Thus the Quichean–Mamean grouping can be said to rest mostly on shared retentions rather than innovations.
Mamean is largely differentiated from K'ichean by a chain shift
Chain shift
In phonology, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that, after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain...
which changed *[r] into [t], *[t] into [tʃ], *[tʃ] into [tʂ] and *[ʃ] into [ʂ]. These retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
affricates and fricatives later spread to Q'anjob'alan through language contact
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
.
Within the Quichean branch, Kaqchikel and Tz'utujil differ from Quichean proper in having changed a final Proto-Mayan *[w] and *[ɓ] into [j] and [ʔ] respectively in polysyllabic words.
Some other changes are general throughout the Mayan family. For example, the Proto-Mayan glottal fricative *[h], which no language has retained as such, has numerous reflexes in the various daughter languages depending on its position within a word. In some cases it lengthened a preceding vowel in languages which retained vowel length. In other languages it became [w], [j], [ʔ], [x], or disappeared.
Other sporadic innovations have occurred independently in several branches. For example distinctive vowel length has been lost in Q'anjobalan–Chujean (except for Mocho' and Akateko), Kaqchikel and Ch'olan. Other languages have transformed the length distinction into one of tense versus lax
Tenseness
In phonology, tenseness is a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. It has also occasionally been used to describe contrasts in consonants. Unlike most distinctive features, the feature [tense] can be interpreted only relatively, that is, in...
vowels, later losing the distinction in a majority of cases. However, Kaqchikel has preserved a centralized lax, schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
-like vowel as a reflex of Proto-Mayan [a]. Two languages, Yucatec and Uspantek, as well as one dialect of Tzotzil, have introduced a tonal
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
distinction in vowels, with high and low tones corresponding to former vowel length as well as reflecting *[h] and *[ʔ].
Grammar
The morphologyMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
of Mayan languages is simpler than that of other Mesoamerican languages, yet its morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
is still considered agglutinating
Agglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view...
and polysynthetic
Polysynthetic language
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes. Whereas isolating languages have a low morpheme-to-word ratio, polysynthetic languages have extremely high morpheme-to-word ratios.Not all languages can be...
. Verbs are marked for aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
or tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, the person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
of the subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
, the person of the object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
(in the case of transitive verb
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
s), and for plurality
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
of person. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. There are no cases or genders in Mayan languages.
Word order
Proto-Mayan is thought to have had a basic verb–object–subject word order with possibilities of switching to VSO in certain circumstances, such as complex sentences, sentences where object and subject were of equal animacy and when the subject was definite. Today Yucatecan, Tzotzil and Tojolab'al have a basic fixed VOS word order. Mamean, Q'anjob'al, Jakaltek and one dialect of Chuj have a fixed VSO one. Only Ch'orti' has a basic SVO word order. Other Mayan languages allow both VSO and VOS word orders.Numeral classifiers
When counting it is necessary to use numeral classifiers which specify the class of items being counted; the numeral cannot appear without an accompanying classifier. Class is usually assigned according to whether the object is animate or inanimate or according to an object's general shape. Thus when counting "flat" objects, a different form of numeral classifier is used than when counting round things, oblong items or people. In some Mayan languages such as Chontal, classifiers take the form of affixes attached to the numeral; in others such as Tzeltal, they are free forms. In Jakaltek the classifiers can also be used as pronouns.The meaning denoted by a noun may be altered significantly by changing the accompanying classifier. In Chontal, for example, when the classifier -tek is used with names of plants it is understood that the objects being enumerated are whole trees. If in this expression a different classifier, -ts'it (for counting long, slender objects) is substituted for -tek, this conveys the meaning that only sticks or branches of the tree are being counted:
| untek wop (one-tree Jahuacte) "one jahuacte tree" | unts'it wop (one-stick jahuacte) "one stick from a jahuacte tree" | ||||
| un- | tek | wop | un- | ts'it | wop |
| one- | "plant" | jahuacte tree | one- | "long.slender.object" | jahuacte tree |
Possession
The morphology of Mayan nouns is fairly simple: they inflect for number (plural or singular), and, when possessed, for person and number of their possessor.Pronominal possession is expressed by a set of possessive prefixes attached to the noun, as in Kaqchikel ru-kej "his/her horse". Nouns may furthermore adopt a special form marking them as possessed.
For nominal possessors, the possessed noun is inflected as possessed by a third-person possessor, and followed by the possessor noun, e.g. Kaqchikel ru-kej ri achin "the man's horse" (literally "his horse the man"). This type of formation is a main diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
and recurs throughout Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
.
Mayan languages often contrast alienable and inalienable possession
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
by varying the way the noun is (or is not) marked as possessed. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts inalienably possessed wetʃel "my photo (in which I am depicted)" with alienably possessed wetʃele "my photo (taken by me)". The prefix we- marks the first person singular possessor in both, but the absence of the -e possessive suffix in the first form marks inalienable possession.
Relational nouns
Mayan languages which have prepositions at all normally have only one. To express location and other relations between entities, use is made of a special class of "relational nounRelational noun
Relational nouns or relator nouns are a class of words used in many languages. They are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions...
s". This pattern is also recurrent throughout Mesoamerica and is another diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. In Mayan most relational nouns are metaphorically derived from body parts so that "on top of," for example, is expressed by the word for head.
Relational nouns are possessed by the constituent that is the reference point of the relation, and the relational noun names the relation. Thus in Mayan one would say "the mountain's head" (literally "its head the mountain") to mean "on (top of) the mountain". Thus in the Classical Quiché of the Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
we read u-wach ulew "on the earth" (literally "its face the earth").
Subjects and objects
Mayan languages are ergative in their alignmentMorphosyntactic alignment
In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs...
. This means that the subject of an intransitive verb is treated similarly to the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the subject of a transitive verb.
Mayan languages have two sets of affixes that are attached to a verb to indicate the person of its arguments. One set (often referred to in Mayan grammars as set A) indicates the person of subjects of intransitive verbs, and of objects of transitive verbs. They can also be used with adjective or noun predicates to indicate the subject.
| Usage | Example | Language of example | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject of an intransitive verb | x-ix-ok | Kaqchikel | "You (Plural) entered" |
| Object of a transitive verb | x-ix-ru-chöp | Kaqchikel | "He/she took you (Plural)" |
| Subject of an adjective predicate | ix-samajel | Kaqchikel | "You (Plural) are hard-working." |
| Subject of a noun predicate | 'antz-ot |
Tzotzil | "You are a woman." |
Another set (set B) is used to indicate the person of subjects of transitive verbs, and also the possessors of nouns (including relational nouns).
| Usage | Example | Language of example | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject of a transitive verb |
x-ix-ru-chöp | Kaqchikel | "He/she took you guys" |
| Possessive marker | ru-kej ri achin | Kaqchikel | "the man’s horse" (literally: "his horse the man") |
| Relational marker | u-wach ulew | Classical Quiché | "on the earth" (literally: "its face the earth", i.e. "face of the earth") |
Verbs
In addition to subject and object (agent and patient), the Mayan verb has affixes signalling aspect, tense, and mood as in the following example:| Aspect/mood/tense | Class A prefix | Class B prefix | Root | Aspect/mood/voice | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| k- | in- | a- | ch'ay | |||
| Incompletive | 1st person sg. Patient | 2nd person sg. Agent | hit | Incompletive | ||
| (K'iche') kinach'ayo "You are hitting me" | ||||||
Tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
systems in Mayan languages are generally simple. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts only past and non-past, while Mam has only future and non-future. Aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
systems are normally more prominent. Mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
does not normally form a separate system in Mayan, but is instead intertwined with the tense/aspect system. Kaufman has reconstructed a tense/aspect/mood system for proto-Mayan that includes seven aspects: incompletive, progressive, completive/punctual, imperative, potential/future, optative, and perfective.
Mayan languages tend to have a rich set of grammatical voices. Proto-Mayan had at least one passive construction as well as an antipassive
Antipassive voice
The antipassive voice is a verb voice that works on transitive verbs by deleting the object. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency by one - the passive by deleting the subject , the antipassive by deleting the object The antipassive voice...
rule for downplaying the importance of the agent in relation to the patient. Modern K'iche' has two antipassives: one which ascribes focus to the object and another that emphasizes the verbal action. Other voice-related constructions occurring in Mayan languages are the following: mediopassive
Mediopassive voice
The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice.Languages of the Indo-European family typically have two or three voices of the three: active, middle, and passive. "Mediopassive" may be used to describe a category that covers...
, incorporational (incorporating a direct object into the verb), instrumental (promoting the instrument to object position) and referential (a kind of applicative
Applicative voice
The applicative voice is a grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the object argument, and indicates the oblique role within the meaning of the verb. When the applicative voice is applied to a verb, its valency may be increased by one...
promoting an indirect argument such as a benefactive or recipient to the object position).
Statives and positionals
In Mayan languages, words are usually viewed as belonging to one of four classes: verbs, statives, adjectives, and nouns.Statives are a class of predicative
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
words expressing a quality or state, whose syntactic properties fall in between those of verbs and adjectives in Indo-European languages. Like verbs, statives can sometimes be inflected for person but normally lack inflections for tense, aspect and other purely verbal categories. This is very similar to the so-called Japanese "adjectives". Statives can be adjectives, positionals or numerals.
Positionals, a class of root
Root (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
s characteristic of, if not unique to, the Mayan languages, form stative adjectives and verbs (usually with the help of suffixes) with meanings related to the position or shape of an object or person. Mayan languages have between 250 and 500 distinct positional roots:
In these three Q'anjob'al sentences, the positionals are telan ("something large or cylindrical lying down as if having fallen"), woqan ("person sitting on a chairlike object"), and xoyan ("curled up like a rope or snake").
Word formation
Compounding of noun roots to form new nouns is commonplace; there are also many morphological processes to derive nouns from verbs. Verbs also admit highly productive derivationalDerivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
affixes of several kinds, most of which specify transitivity or voice.
Some Mayan languages allow incorporation of noun stems into verbs, either as direct objects or in other functions. However, there are few affixes with adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
ial or modal meanings.
As in other Mesoamerican languages, there is widespread metaphorical use of roots denoting body parts, particularly to form locatives and relational nouns such as Tzeltal/Tzotzil ti' na "door" (lit. "mouth of house"), or Kaqchikel chi ru-pam "inside" (lit. "mouth its-stomach").
Mayan loanwords
A number of loanwordLoanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s of Mayan or potentially Mayan origins are found in other languages, principally Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and some neighboring Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican languages are the languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. The area is characterized by extensive linguistic diversity containing several hundred different languages and...
. Equally, there are words in both historical and modern Mayan languages that are known or suspected to ultimately derive from some non-Mayan language.
According to Breaking the Maya Code: Revised Edition by Michael D. Coe, 1999, the English word "shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
" comes directly from the Yucatec Maya xoc for "fish". The OED print edition describes the origin of shark as "uncertain", noting that it "seems to have been introduced by the sailors of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins
John Hawkins
Admiral Sir John Hawkins was an English shipbuilder, naval administrator and commander, merchant, navigator, and slave trader. As treasurer and controller of the Royal Navy, he rebuilt older ships and helped design the faster ships that withstood the Spanish Armada in 1588...
's expedition, who brought home a specimen which was exhibited in London in 1569".
Another word is "cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
". "Zik" is Maya for "smoke" and "zikil" is Chol Maya for "smoked", which in Chorti Maya is "zikar", the origin for cigar and thus cigarette.
The word "hurricane" is clearly related to the Mayan deity Jun Raqan
Huracan
Huracan , in Mayan understandable as Jun Raqan "one legged", is a K'iche' Mayan god of wind, storm, fire and one of the creator deities who participated in all three attempts at creating humanity...
. However, it is probable that the word passed into European languages from Carib
Carib language
Carib, also known as Caribe, Cariña, Galibi, Galibí, Kali'na, Kalihna, Kalinya, Galibi Carib, Maraworno and Marworno, is an Amerindian language in the Cariban language family....
. Whether the word passed from Mayan to Carib or from Carib to Mayan is unknown.
Writing systems
In colonial times Mayan languages came to be written in a script derived from the Latin alphabet; orthographies were developed mostly by missionary grammarians. Not all modern Mayan languages have standardized orthographies, but the Mayan languages of Guatemala use a standardized, Latin-based phonemic spelling system developed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 21 Mayan languages spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended particular efforts on standardising the various writing systems used...
(ALMG). Orthographies for the languages of Mexico are currently being developed by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas by the administration of President Vicente Fox...
(INALI).
Glyphic writing
The pre-Columbian Maya civilizationMaya 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...
developed and used an intricate and fully functional writing system
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
, which is the only Mesoamerican script
Mesoamerican writing systems
Mesoamerica, like India, Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, is one of the few places in the world where writing has developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are logosyllabic, combining the use of logograms with a syllabary, and they are often called hieroglyphic scripts...
that can be said to be almost fully deciphered. Earlier-established civilizations to the west and north of the Maya homelands that also had scripts recorded in surviving inscriptions include the Zapotec
Zapotec civilization
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
, Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
, and the Zoque
Zoque
The Zoque are an indigenous people of Mexico; they speak variants of the Zoque languages.This group consists of 41,609 people, according to the 2000 census...
-speaking peoples of the southern Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
and western Chiapas area — but their scripts are as yet largely undeciphered. It is generally agreed that the Maya writing system was adapted from one or more of these earlier systems. A number of references identify the undeciphered Olmec script
Olmec hieroglyphs
The Cascajal Block is a writing tablet-sized serpentinite slab which has been dated to the early first millennium BCE incised with hitherto unknown characters that may represent the earliest writing system in the New World. Archaeologist Stephen D...
as its most likely precursor.
In the course of the deciphering of the Maya hieroglyphic script, scholars have come to understand that it was a fully functioning writing system in which it was possible to express unambiguously any sentence of the spoken language. The system is of a type best classified as logosyllabic, in which symbols (glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
s or graphemes) can be used as either logogram
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
s or syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s.
The script has a complete syllabary
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
(although not all possible syllables have yet been identified), and a Maya scribe would have been able to write anything phonetically, syllable by syllable, using these symbols. In practice, almost all inscriptions of any length were written employing a combination of syllabic signs and word signs (called logograms), similar to the way modern Japanese is written, as well as to the scripts used to write ancient languages such as Akkadian, Hittite, Hurrian, and Egyptian.
Classic Maya language
The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically attested member of the Mayan language family. It is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian inscriptions of the Classic Era Maya civilization.- Relationships :...
predominates in these texts, particularly in the Classic-era inscriptions of the southern and central lowland areas. This language is most closely related to the Ch'olan branch of the language family, modern descendants of which include Ch'ol, Ch'orti' and Chontal.
Inscriptions in an early Yucatecan language (the ancestor of the main surviving Yucatec language) have also been recognised or proposed, mainly in the Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
region and from a later period. Three of the four extant Maya codices
Maya codices
Maya codices are folding books stemming from the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark cloth, made from the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild fig tree or Amate . Paper, generally known by the Nahuatl word amatl, was named by...
are based on Yucatec. It has also been surmised that some inscriptions found in the Chiapas highlands
Chiapas highlands
The region of the Chiapas Highlands is located in Chiapas, the southern-most state of Mexico.Many pre-Columbian Maya civilization sites are located in these highlands....
region may be in a Tzeltalan language whose modern descendants are Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Other regional varieties and dialects are also presumed to have been used, but have not yet been identified with certainty.
Use and knowledge of the Maya script continued until the 16th century Spanish conquest
Spanish conquest of Yucatán
The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities, particularly in the northern and central Yucatán Peninsula but also involving the Maya polities of the Guatemalan highlands region...
at least. Bishop Diego de Landa Calderón of the Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán prohibited the use of the written language, effectively ending the Mesoamerican tradition of literacy in the native script. He worked with the Spanish colonizers to destroy the bulk of Mayan texts as part of his efforts to convert
Convert
The convert or try, in American football known as "point after", and Canadian football "Point after touchdown", is a one-scrimmage down played immediately after a touchdown during which the scoring team is allowed to attempt to score an extra one point by kicking the ball through the uprights , or...
the locals to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and away from what he perceived as pagan idolatry. Later he described the use of hieroglyphic writing in the religious practices of Yucatecan Maya in his Relacíon de las cosas de Yucatán
Relacíon de las cosas de Yucatán
Relación de las cosas de Yucatán was written by Diego de Landa Calderón circa 1566 shortly after his return to Spain after serving as Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán in the sixteenth century...
.
Modern orthography
Since the colonial period, practically all Maya writing has used Latin charactersLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. Formerly spelling was generally based on Spanish, and it is only recently that standardized orthographic conventions have started to arise. The first widely accepted orthographic standards were set in Yucatec Maya by the authors and contributors of the Diccionario Maya Cordemex, a project directed by Alfredo Barrera Vásquez
Alfredo Barrera Vásquez
Alfredo Barrera Vázquez was a Mexican anthropologist, linguist, academic and Mayanist scholar. He is noted for both his research into the historical Maya civilization of the pre-Columbian era and his contributions promoting literacy in Mayan languages and the culture of contemporary Maya peoples...
and first published in 1980. Subsequently, the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (known by its Spanish acronym ALMG), founded in 1986, adapted these standards to 22 Mayan languages (primarily in Guatemala). Other major Maya languages, primarily in the Mexican state of Chiapas, such as Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch'ol, and Tojolab'al, are not generally included in this reformation. These latter languages sometimes are written with the conventions standardized by the Chiapan "State Center for Indigenous Language, Art, and Literature" (CELALI), which for instance writes "ts" rather than "tz" (thus Tseltal and Tsotsil). In Mexico, names of archaeological sites and other items of historical record retain the colonial spellings, rather than the revised orthography.
| Vowels | Consonants | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ||
| a | [a] | aa | [aː] | ä | [ɐ] | b' | [ɓ] | b | [b] | ch | [tʃ] | ch' | [tʃʼ] | h | [h] |
| e | [e] | ee | [eː] | ë | [ə] | j | [x] | k | [k] | k' | [kʼ] | l | [l] | m | [m] |
| i | [i] | ii | [iː] | ï | [ɪ] | n | [n] | nh | [ŋ] | p | [p] | q | [q] | q' | [qʼ] |
| o | [o] | oo | [oː] | ö | [ʌ] | r | [r] | s | [s] | t | [t] | t' | [tʼ] | tz | [ts] |
| u | [u] | uu | [uː] | ü | [ʊ] | tz' | [tsʼ] | w | [w] | x | [ʃ] | y | [j] | ' | [ʔ] |
| colspan=16 align=left Class="references-small"| These vowels and signs are only used in Kaqchikel In tonal languages (primarily Yucatec), a high tone is indicated with an accent, as with "á" or "ée". |
For the languages that make a distinction between palato-alveolar
Palato-alveolar consonant
In phonetics, palato-alveolar consonants are postalveolar consonants, nearly always sibilants, that are weakly palatalized with a domed tongue...
and retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
affricates and fricatives (Mam, Ixil, Tektitek, Awakatek, Q'anjob'al, Popti', and Akatek in Guatemala, and Yucatec in Mexico) the ALMG suggests the following set of conventions.
| ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA | ALMG | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ch | [tʃ] | ch' | [tʃʼ] | xh | [ʃ] |
| tx | [tʂ] | tx' | [tʂʼ] | x | [ʂ] |
One element of the revised orthographies that is not widely accepted, especially outside the Guatemalan context, is the conversion of proper nouns (such as names of archaeological sites, modern settlements, and cultures). Thus, the Cordemex continues to use the term "Yucatán" (rather than "Yukatan") in its preface, despite the fact that its orthography does not utilize a "c", and most scholarly archaeological texts continue to print the original spellings for archaeological sites and cultures that have been canonized in the literature over the centuries.
Literature
From the Classic period to the present day, a body of literature has been written in Mayan languages. The earliest texts to have been preserved are largely monumental inscriptions documenting rulership, succession, and ascension, conquest and calendrical and astronomical events. It is likely that other kinds of literature were written in perishable media such as codices made of bark, only four of which have survived the ravages of time and the campaign of destruction by Spanish missionaries.Shortly after the Spanish conquest
Spanish conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...
, the Mayan languages began to be written with Latin letters. Colonial-era literature in Mayan languages include the famous Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
, a mythico-historical narrative written in 17th century Classical Quiché but believed to be based on an earlier work written in the 1550s, now lost. The Título de Totonicapán and the 17th century theatrical work the Rabinal Achí
Rabinal Achí
The Rabinal Achí is a Maya theatrical play performed in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Its original name is Xajooj Tun meaning, Tun Dance. Rabinal Achí is a dynastic Maya drama from the fifteenth century and a rare example of pre-Hispanic traditions...
are other notable early works in K'iche', the latter in the Achí dialect. The Annals of the Cakchiquels
Annals of the Cakchiquels
The Annals of the Cakchiquels , is a manuscript written in Kaqchikel, by Francisco Hernández Arana Xajilá in 1571, and completed by his grand son, Francisco Rojas in 1604...
from the late 16th century, which provides a historical narrative of the Kaqchikel, contains elements paralleling some of the accounts appearing in the Popol Vuh. The historical and prophetical accounts in the several variations known collectively as the books of Chilam Balam
Chilam Balam
The so-called Books of Chilam Balam are handwritten, chiefly 18th-century Mayan miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept, and preserving important traditional knowledge in which indigenous Mayan and early Spanish traditions have coalesced...
are primary sources of early Yucatec Maya traditions. The only surviving book of early lyric poetry, the Songs of Dzitbalche
Songs of Dzitbalche
The [Book of the] Songs of Dzitbalché is the source of almost all the ancient Mayan lyric poems that have survived, and is closely connected to the Books of Chilam Balam, sacred books of the colonial Yucatec Maya. The sole surviving copy of the Songs of Dzitbalché was written in alphabetic Mayan...
by Ah Bam, comes from this same period.
In addition to these singular works, many early grammars of indigenous languages, called "artes", were written by priests and friars. Languages covered by these early grammars include Kaqchikel, Classical Quiché, Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Yucatec. Some of these came with indigenous-language translations of the Catholic catechism.
Almost no literature in indigenous languages was written in the postcolonial period (after 1821) except by linguists and ethnologists gathering oral literature. The Mayan peoples had remained largely illiterate in their native languages, learning to read and write in Spanish, if at all. However, since the establishment of the Cordemex (1980) and the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (1986), native language literacy has begun to spread and a number of indigenous writers have started a new tradition of writing in Mayan languages. Notable among this new generation is the K'iche' poet Humberto Ak'ab'al
Humberto Ak'ab'al
Humberto Ak'ab'al also Ak'abal or Akabal is a K'iche' Maya poet from Guatemala. His poetry has been published in French, English, Scots, German, and Italian translations, as well as in the original K'iche' and Spanish...
, whose works are often published in dual-language Spanish/K'iche' editions.
External links
- The Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages – Spanish/Mayan site, the primary authority on Mayan Languages
- Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University