Mayan sign languages
Encyclopedia
The Maya Sign Language is a sign language
used in Mexico
and Guatemala
by Maya
communities with unusually high numbers of deaf inhabitants. In some instances, both hearing and deaf members of a village may use the sign language. It unrelated to the national sign languages of Mexico (Mexican Sign Language
) and Guatemala (Guatemalan Sign Language
), as well as to the local spoken Mayan languages
and Spanish
.
region by both hearing and deaf rural Maya. It is a natural, complex language
which is not related to Mexican Sign Language
, but may have similarities with sign languages found in nearby Guatemala
.
As the hearing villagers are competent in the sign language, the deaf inhabitants seem to be well integrated in the community – in contrast to the marginalisation of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Maya Sign Language, which appears to be used in at least one village as a means of social segregation and oppression (see below).
The spoken language of the community is the Yucatec Maya language.
as Meemul Ch'aab'al and Meemul Tziij, "mute language." Researcher Erich Fox Tree reports that it is used by deaf rural Maya throughout the region, as well as some traders and traditional storytellers. These communities and Fox Tree believe that Meemul Ch'aab'al belongs to an ancient family of Maya sign languages. Fox Tree claims that Yutactec Maya Sign Language is also "closely-related and substantially mutually-intelligible".
In at least one highland community, the sign language is used by "an impoverished class of deaf and hearing servants who are often forbidden to speak aloud in the presence of their masters: a hidden class of rural peons who call themselves 'slaves.'"
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
used in 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...
and 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...
by 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...
communities with unusually high numbers of deaf inhabitants. In some instances, both hearing and deaf members of a village may use the sign language. It unrelated to the national sign languages of Mexico (Mexican Sign Language
Mexican Sign Language
Mexican Sign Language , is the language of the Deaf community in the urban regions of Mexico. It is the language of 87,000 to 100,000 signers Mexican Sign Language (“lengua de señas mexicana” or LSM, also known by several other names), is the language of the Deaf community in the urban regions of...
) and Guatemala (Guatemalan Sign Language
Guatemalan Sign Language
Guatelmalan Sign Language is the national deaf sign language used in Guatemala. The first dictionary was published in 2000. It is distinct from the sign languages used in Mexico and other neighboring Spanish speaking countries, and from Highland Maya Sign Language, which is used among K'iche'...
), as well as to the local spoken Mayan languages
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
and 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...
.
Yucatec Maya Sign Language
Yucatec Maya Sign Language, also known as Nohya Sign Language, is used in the YucatánYucatán
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....
region by both hearing and deaf rural Maya. It is a natural, complex language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
which is not related to Mexican Sign Language
Mexican Sign Language
Mexican Sign Language , is the language of the Deaf community in the urban regions of Mexico. It is the language of 87,000 to 100,000 signers Mexican Sign Language (“lengua de señas mexicana” or LSM, also known by several other names), is the language of the Deaf community in the urban regions of...
, but may have similarities with sign languages found in nearby 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...
.
As the hearing villagers are competent in the sign language, the deaf inhabitants seem to be well integrated in the community – in contrast to the marginalisation of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Maya Sign Language, which appears to be used in at least one village as a means of social segregation and oppression (see below).
The spoken language of the community is the Yucatec Maya language.
Highland Maya Sign Language
In the highlands of Guatemala, Maya use a sign language that belongs to a "sign language complex" known locally in the K'iche'(Quiché) languageK'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...
as Meemul Ch'aab'al and Meemul Tziij, "mute language." Researcher Erich Fox Tree reports that it is used by deaf rural Maya throughout the region, as well as some traders and traditional storytellers. These communities and Fox Tree believe that Meemul Ch'aab'al belongs to an ancient family of Maya sign languages. Fox Tree claims that Yutactec Maya Sign Language is also "closely-related and substantially mutually-intelligible".
In at least one highland community, the sign language is used by "an impoverished class of deaf and hearing servants who are often forbidden to speak aloud in the presence of their masters: a hidden class of rural peons who call themselves 'slaves.'"
Further reading
- Johnson, Robert E. (1991). Sign language, culture & community in a traditional Yucatec Maya village, in Sign Language Studies 73:461-474 (1991).
- Shuman, Malcolm K. & Mary Margaret Cherry-Shuman. (1981). A brief annotated sign list of Yucatec Maya sign language. Language Sciences, 3, 1 (53), 124–185.
- Shuman, Malcolm K. (1980). The sound of silence in Nohya: a preliminary account of sign language use by the deaf in a Maya community in Yucatán, Mexico. Language Sciences, 2, 1 (51), Mar, 144–173.
- Du Bois, John W. (1978). Mayan sign language: An ethnography of non-verbal communication. Paper presented at the 77th annual meeting, American Anthropological AssociationAmerican Anthropological AssociationThe American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
, Los Angeles. - Smith, Hubert L. (1982) "The Living Maya," a 4-hour film documentary on the Yucatecan community with scenes of the deaf and their uses of sign.
- Smith, Hubert L. (1977–2006) A corpus of film and video expressly devoted to the Maya deaf and archived at The Smithsonian Institution.
- Fox Tree, Erich. (2009). Meemul Tziij:An Indigenous Sign Language Complex of Mesoamerica, Sign Language Studies, 9(3):324–366 (Spring 2009). Abstract