Mayan
Geographic distribution:	Mesoamerica: Southern Mexico; Guatemala; Belize; western Honduras and El Salvador; small refugee and emigrant populations, especially in the United States and Canada
Genetic classification:	language family descended from Proto-Mayan. Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Mesoamérica is a Region extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, defined The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Guatemala (República de Guatemala) is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west the Pacific Ocean to the southwest Belize (bəˈliːz formerly British Honduras, is a country in Central America. Honduras in Spanish, República de Honduras) is a democratic republic in Central America. El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family Proto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the extinct Classic Maya language documented in the Maya See below for details.
Subdivisions:	Huastecan Yucatecan Ch'olan Q'anjobalan-Chujean Mamean Quichean Poqom
ISO 639-2:	myn
Location of Mayan speaking populations. ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages See below for a detailed map of the separate languages.

The Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages)^[1] form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Mesoamérica is a Region extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, defined Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize. The Maya peoples constitute a diverse range of the Native American peoples of southern Mexico and northern Central America. Guatemala (República de Guatemala) is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west the Pacific Ocean to the southwest The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Belize (bəˈliːz formerly British Honduras, is a country in Central America. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name,^[2] and Mexico recognizes eight more. Mexico has an enormous linguistic diversity apart from Spanish, the government recognizes 62 indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages

The Mayan language family is one of the best documented and most studied in the Americas. The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America ^[3] 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. Proto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the extinct Classic Maya language documented in the Maya Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change The comparative method (in Comparative linguistics) is a technique used by linguists to demonstrate genetic relationships between Languages It aims to prove

Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a Sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. A Sprachbund (ˈʃpraːxbʊnt in German plural Sprachbünde) from the German word for “language union” also known as a linguistic area, convergence All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational nouns instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. Relational nouns are a class of words used in some languages that is characterized by functioning syntactically as Nouns but conveying the meaning of Prepositions In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. 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. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. Linguistic Typology is an international Peer-reviewed journal in the field of Linguistic typology, founded in 1997 An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive In Grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or

During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history, some Mayan languages were written in the Maya hieroglyphic script. The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into a number of named successive eras or periods from the earliest evidence of human habitation The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization (c. The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican Civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the Pre-Columbian Americas 250–900 CE). The surviving corpus of over 10,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices,^[4] 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. Maya codices (singular Codex) are folding Books stemming from the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early Writing in the Mesoamerican region which date from

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"). A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family. ^[5] 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. ^[6] The first division occurred around 2200 BCE when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper, after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast. The Gulf Coast of Mexico stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from the border with the United states at Matamoros all the way to the tip of the Yucatán Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Ch'olan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula. The Yucatán Peninsula, in Southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. 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. The region of the Chiapas highlands are located in the southern-most state of Mexico, Chiapas. The Mixe-Zoque languages constitute a Language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico.

In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanwords from Mixe-Zoquean languages seem to have entered the proto-Mayan language. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe-Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec culture. The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the Tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states ^[7] 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. The Xinca language is a Mesoamerican language spoken by the indigenous Xinca people from communities in the southern portion of Guatemala The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. This is seen by Mayan language specialists like Lyle Campbell to suggest a period of intense contact between Maya and the Lencan and Xinca people, possibly during the Classic period (250–900 CE). Lyle Richard Campbell (born 1942) is a Linguist who is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Native American languages, especially the Mayan Lenca people are an Indigenous peoples of Central America, situated in the western highland regions of Honduras and eastern El Salvador. The Xinca are a non-Mayan indigenous people of Mesoamerica, with communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador ^[8]

Approximate migration routes and dates for various Mayan language families. The region shown as Proto-Mayan is now occupied by speakers of the Q'anjobalan branch (light blue in other figures). ^[9]

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. 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 Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at the Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as "Classic Maya language. This List of Maya sites is an alphabetical listing of a number of significant Archaeological sites associated with the Maya civilization of Pre-Columbian The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically-attested member of the Mayan language family. "

During the Classic period all the major branches diversified into separate languages. But the glyphic texts only record two varieties of Mayan — a Ch'olan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands, and a Yucatecan variety found in the texts from Yucatán Peninsula. ^[10]

It was recently 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. ^[11] The reason why only two linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialects throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite. A prestige dialect is the Dialect spoken by the most prestigious people in a Speech community which is large enough to sustain more than one dialect ^[12] Nevertheless, common Mayan people must already have spoken a number of distinct languages by the Classic period.

During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous languages were eclipsed by Spanish which became the new prestige language. Mayan languages were no exception, and their use 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,^[13] and perhaps for this reason many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. Monoglottism ( Greek monos, "alone solitary" + glotta, "tongue language" or more commonly monolingualism or unilingualism Nonetheless, the Maya area is now dominated by Spanish. 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. In Linguistics, language death (also language extinction, linguistic extinction, and sometimes pejoratively as linguicide) is a process An endangered language is a Language that it is at risk of falling out of use generally because it has few surviving speakers ^[14]

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 term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican Civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the Pre-Columbian Americas ^[15]

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. Mayapan ( Màayapáan in Modern Maya) (in Spanish Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian Maya site in the state of 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 themselves first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e. g. as "Yucatec" or "K'iche'"; but they also recognize a shared Mayan kinship. ^[16]

Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. ^[17] Paradoxically perhaps, this pride in unity has led to an insistence on the separateness of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. However, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in the past, making a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages. ^[18]

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 Mayan organisations in 1986. The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG (may be translated into English as Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages) is a Guatemalan organisation Following the 1996 peace accords it has been gaining growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples themselves. The Guatemalan Civil War, the longest civil war in Latin American history ran from 1960 to 1996, and had a profound impact on Guatemala.

Genealogy and classification

Relations with other families

The Mayan linguistic family has no demonstrated genetic ties to other linguistic families. Genetic, in Linguistics, means due to descent from a common ancestor language rather than borrowing at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily descended 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. Mesoamerica has been proven to be an area of substantial linguistic diffusion. The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a Sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. ^[19]

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. A language isolate, in the absolute sense is a Natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic" relationship with other living languages that is Examples include linking Mayan with Chipaya-Uru, Mapudungun, Lenca, P'urhépecha and Huave. Uru-Chipaya, also known as Chipaya-Uru is an indigenous Language family of Bolivia consisting of two closely related languages Mapudungun (from mapu 'earth land' and dungun 'speak speech' is a Language isolate spoken in central Chile and west central Argentina The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. The P'urhépecha, sometimes referred to as Tarascan or Purépecha are an indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of the Mexican Huave may refer to the Huave language the Huave people Mayan has also been included in various Hokan and Penutian hypotheses. The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California and Mexico. Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one The linguist Joseph Greenberg included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis, which is rejected by most historical linguists as unsupported by available evidence. Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28 1915 – May 7 2001 was a prominent and controversial linguist and Africanist anthropologist known for his work in both typology Amerind is a putative higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1987 book Language in the Americas. Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change

According to Lyle Campbell, an expert in Mayan languages, the most promising proposal is the "Macro-Mayan" hypothesis, which posits linkages between Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean languages and Totonacan, but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis. Lyle Richard Campbell (born 1942) is a Linguist who is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Native American languages, especially the Mayan In linguistics a linkage is a group of undoubtedly related languages for whom no Proto-language can be reconstructed The Mixe-Zoque languages constitute a Language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of ^[20]

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^[21] (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.

Geography and demographics

See also: List of Mayan languages

Map of areas where the various Mayan languages are spoken. See also Mesoamerican languages Mesoamerican Font sizes indicate relative sizes of speaker populations (Yucatec and K'iche' with 900,000 and 2,000,000 speakers respectively; 100,000–500,000 speakers; 10,000–100,000 speakers; and under 10,000 speakers. )

Huastecan branch

Wastek (also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec) is spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz and San Luis Potosí by around 110,000 people. 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, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the republic of Mexico. San Luis Potosí is the name of both a state in Mexico and that state's capital city ^[22] 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. Chicomuceltec (also Chikomuselteko or Chicomucelteco; archaically Cotoque) is a Mayan language formerly spoken in the region defined by the ^[23]

Yucatecan branch

Yucatec Maya (known simply as "Maya" to its speakers) is the most commonly spoken Maya language in Mexico. Yucatec Maya ("Maaya T'aan" in the revised Orthography of the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala) is a Mayan language spoken in The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. It is currently spoken by approximately 800,000 people, the vast majority of whom are to be found on the Yucatán Peninsula. The Yucatán Peninsula, in Southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. ^[24][25] 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. Yucatán is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located on the north of the Yucatán Peninsula. Quintana Roo (kinˈtana ˈro is a state of Mexico, on the eastern part of the Yucatán Peninsula. Campeche is the name of both a state in Mexico and its capital city

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;^[26] 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. Mopan is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. Belize (bəˈliːz formerly British Honduras, is a country in Central America. Itza' (also Itza, Petén Itzá Maya) is one of the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. The Lacandón are one of the Maya peoples who live in the jungles of the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the southern border with Tha Lacandon Jungle (Spanish Selva Lacandona) is a jungle in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country

Western branch

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. Ch'ol (or Chol is a member of the western branch of the Mayan language family used by the Ch'ol people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. ^[27] Its closest relative, the Chontal Maya language,^[28] is spoken by 55,000^[29] in the state of Tabasco. Yoko ochoco, also known as Chontal Maya, and Acalan, is a Maya language of the Cholan family spoken by the Chontal Maya Tabasco is a state in Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the west Chiapas to the south and Campeche to the Another related language, now endangered, is Ch'orti', which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala. The Ch'orti' language (sometimes also Chorti) is a Mayan language, spoken by the indigenous Maya people who are also known as the Ch'orti' ^[30] It was previously also spoken in extreme western Honduras and El Salvador but the El Salvador variant is now extinct and that of Honduras is considered moribund. Honduras in Spanish, República de Honduras) is a democratic republic in Central America. El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America. Ch'olti', a sister language of Ch'orti', is also extinct. The Ch'olti' language is an extinct Mayan language which was spoken in the Manche region of eastern Guatemala.

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. ^[31]

Tzeltalan

The closest relatives of the Ch'olan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch, Tzotzil and Tzeltal, both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal). Tzotzil (native name Bats'i k'op; IPA k'opʰ is a Maya language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican Tzeltal is a Mayan language spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas. ^[32] Tzotzil and Tzeltal have large numbers of monolingual speakers.

Q'anjobalan

Q'anjob'al is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango department,^[33] with small populations elsewhere. Q'anjob'al (also Kanjobal) is a Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. Huehuetenango is a City and a municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. ^[34] Jakaltek (also known as Popti'^[35]) is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalities^[36] of Huehuetenango. The Jakaltek language (also called Poptí) is a Mayan language of Guatemala spoken by around 90000 Jakaltek people in the department of Huehuetenango is a City and a municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. Another member of this branch is Akatek, with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia. San Miguel Acatán is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. San Rafael La Independencia is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango.

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 Trinitaria, Chiapas, and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Chuj is a language belonging to Q'anjobalan-Chujean family of Mayan languages spoken by around 40000 people in Guatemala and 10000 in Mexico. Tojolab'al is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people. Tojolabal is a Mayan language spoken in Chiapas Mexico It is related to the Chuj language spoken in Guatemala. ^[37]

Eastern branch

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, Izabal and Alta Verapaz departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. The Q'eqchi' language (sometimes written Kekchi) is one of the Mayan languages, natively spoken within Q'eqchi' communities in Guatemala In El Salvador it is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations. ^[38]

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. The Uspanteko (Uspanteco Uspanteko Uspantec is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to K'iche'. Uspantán is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. The departments of Guatemala are divided into 332 municipalities or municipios. The Nobel Peace Prize ( Swedish, Danish and Nobels fredspris is one of five Nobel Prizes Bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Rigoberta Menchú Tum (b 9 January 1959, Chimel Quiché, Guatemala) is an indigenous Guatemalan of the Quiché - ^[39]

Mamean

The largest language in this branch is Mam, spoken by 150,000 people in the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango. The Mam language is a member of the Mamean branch of the Mayan language family Awakatek is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán, another municipality of Huehuetenango. Awakateko (Aguacateco Aguacatec is a Mayan language related to Ixil. Aguacatán is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Ixil (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the "Ixil Triangle" region of the department of El Quiché. Ixil is a Mayan language. It is the primary language of the Ixil Triangle -- the three villages of San Juan Cotzal, Santa Maria Nebaj, and The Ixil Triangle is a name given to three neighboring towns in the Quiché department in the western highlands of Guatemala. ^[40] Tektitek (or Teko) is spoken by over 1,000 people in the municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. The Tektiteko language (Tectiteco Teco is a member of the Quichean-Mamean branch of the Mayan language family According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing. ^[41]

Core Quichean

K'iche',^[42] the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 people in the Guatemalan highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango and in the Cuchumatán mountains, as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City. The K'iche' language ( Quiché in Spanish) is a part of the Mayan language family Guatemala (República de Guatemala) is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west the Pacific Ocean to the southwest Chichicastenango, also known as Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, is a Town in the El Quiché department of Guatemala, known for its traditional Quetzaltenango is the second most populous city of Guatemala, after Guatemala City. Guatemala City (in full La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción; locally known as Guatemala or Guate) is the Capital and largest city of the ^[43] The famous Maya mythological document, Popol Vuh, is written in an antiquated K'iche' often called Classical Quiché. For other uses see Popol Vuh (disambiguation The Popol Vuh ( K'iche' for "Council Book" or "Book of the Community" Classical Quiché is the term used to describe an ancestral form of the modern-day K'iche' language ( Quiché in the older Spanish -based Orthography The K'iche' culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. This page is about the Native American people for other uses the dish see Quiché (disambiguation. Utatlán, near the present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché, was its economic and ceremonial center. Gumarcaj, (sometimes rendered as Cumarcaj or Kumarcaaj) is an archeological site in El Quiché department of Guatemala. Santa Cruz de Quiché is a city in Guatemala. It serves as the capital of El Quiché department and the municipal seat of Santa Cruz de Quiché municipality ^[44]

Achi is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco and Rabinal, two municipios of Baja Verapaz. Achi is a Mayan language very closely related to K'iche' ( Quiché in the older orthography Cubulco is a small town located in the Guatemalan department of Baja Verapaz, at. Rabinal is a small town located in the Guatemalan department of Baja Verapaz, at. In some classifications, e. g. the one by Campbell, Achi is counted as a form of K'iche'. Lyle Richard Campbell (born 1942) is a Linguist who is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Native American languages, especially the Mayan However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as K'iche'. ^[45]

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 Kaqchikel, or Kaqchiquel, language (in modern orthography formerly also spelled Cakchiquel or Cakchiquiel) is an indigenous Mesoamerican language Lake Atitlán ( Lago de Atitlán) is a large Endorheic Lake in the Guatemalan Highlands ^[46] Tz'utujil has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. Tz'utujil (or Tz'utujiil is a Mayan language spoken in the region to the south of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. ^[47] 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. Sakapultek is a Mayan language very closely related to Quiché (K'iche' Sipakapense is a Mayan language, closely related to K'iche'. It is spoken natively within indigenous Sipakapense communities, primarily based in Sipacapa is a Municipality in the San Marcos department, situated in the Western highlands of Guatemala. 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. The Annals of the Cakchiquels (in Anales de los Cakchiqueles, also known by the alternative Spanish titles Anales de los Xahil, Memorial

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. ^[48]

Poqomchi' is spoken by 90,000 people^[49] in Purulhá, Baja Verapaz, and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz: Santa Cruz Verapaz, San Cristóbal Verapaz, Tactic, Tamahú and Tucurú. Poqomchí is a Mayan language very closely related to Poqomam. Purulhá is a Municipality in the Baja Verapaz department of Guatemala. Santa Cruz Verapaz is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. San Cristóbal Verapaz is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Tactic is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Tamahú is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Tucurú is a Municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Poqomam is spoken by around 30,000 people^[50] in several small pockets, the largest of which is in the department of Alta Verapaz. Poqomam is a Mayan language, closely related to Poqomchí. It is spoken by ca Formerly Poqomam was also spoken in El Salvador. El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America.

Phonology

Proto-Mayan sound system

Proto-Mayan (the common ancestor of the Mayan languages as reconstructed^[51] using the comparative method) has a predominant CVC syllable structure, only allowing consonant clusters across syllable boundaries. Proto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the extinct Classic Maya language documented in the Maya The comparative method (in Comparative linguistics) is a technique used by linguists to demonstrate genetic relationships between Languages It aims to prove ^[52] 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;^[53] the sounds present in the modern languages are largely similar to this root set. Lyle Richard Campbell (born 1942) is a Linguist who is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Native American languages, especially the Mayan Terrence Kaufman is an American linguist specializing in documentation of Unwritten languages Mesoamerican Historical linguistics and

Phonological evolution of Proto-Mayan

Main article: Proto-Mayan

The classification of Mayan languages is based on changes shared between groups of languages. 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 forward 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 back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound 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 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 An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth 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 Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. Implosive consonants are stops (rarely Affricates with a mixed Glottalic ingressive and Pulmonic egressive Airstream mechanism. In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis. In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis. In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis. In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels Proto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the extinct Classic Maya language documented in the Maya For example languages of the western group (such as Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan) all changed the Proto-Mayan phoneme */r/ into [j], some languages of the eastern branch retained [r] (K'ichean), and others changed it into [ʧ] or, word-finally, [t] (Mamean). The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU ^[54] 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 ([tʲ’] and [tʲ] are not found in any of the modern families. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. 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 [t’]. In Mamean they are reflected as [ʦ] and [ʦ’] and in Quichean as [ʧ] and [ʧ’]. Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into [ʧ] and sometimes [t]. ^[55]

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. ^[57]

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. The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft In Phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the Lips during the articulation of a Vowel. For example, the word for "vulture", which in modern Wastek is pronounced [kʷiːʃ], was written <cuyx> in colonial Wastek, and pronounced *[kuwiːʃ].

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 [ʧ] in word-final position.

Quichean-Mamean, and some Q'anjobalan languages, have retained Proto-Mayan uvular stops ([q] and [q’]); in all other branches these sounds merged with [k] and [k’], 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 [ʧ], *[ʧ] into [ʈʂ] and *[ʃ] into [ʂ]. In the study of Historical linguistics and phonetic change a chain shift is a type of sound shift in which a group of sounds all change at about the same time These retroflex affricates and fricatives later spread to Q'anjob'alan through language contact. In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact ^[58]

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. ^[59]

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. ^[60]

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. In Phonology, tenseness is a particular Vowel or Consonant quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages including English However, Kaqchikel has preserved a centralized lax, schwa-like vowel as a reflex of Proto-Mayan [a]. In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral ^[61] Two languages, Yucatec and Uspantek, as well as one dialect of Tzotzil,^[62] have introduced a tonal distinction in vowels, with high and low tones corresponding to former vowel length as well as reflecting *[h] and *[ʔ]. Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words

Grammar

The grammar of Mayan languages is simpler than that of other Mesoamerican languages,^[63] yet its morphology is still considered agglutinating and polysynthetic. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of ^[64] Verbs are marked for aspect or tense, the person of the subject, the person of the object (in the case of transitive verbs), and for plurality of person. In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. In Syntax, a transitive verb is a Verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" 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. In Linguistic typology, Verb Object Subject or Verb Object Agent - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS or VOA - represents the language-classification Verb Subject Object ( VSO) is a term in Linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these ^[65] 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. In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object 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. In Linguistics, measure words, known more formally as numeral classifiers and also called counters, count words, counter words, or Class is usually assigned according to whether the object is animate or inanimate or according to an object's general shape. ^[66] 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:^[67]

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 and recurs throughout Mesoamerica. The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a Sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Mesoamérica is a Region extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, defined ^[68]

Mayan languages often contrast alienable and inalienable possession by varying the way the noun is (or is not) marked as possessed. Possession, in the context of Linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents the Referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses 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. ^[69]

Relational nouns

Mayan languages which have prepositions at all normally have only one. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. To express location and other relations between entities, use is made of a special class of "relational nouns" . Relational nouns are a class of words used in some languages that is characterized by functioning syntactically as Nouns but conveying the meaning of Prepositions 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. ^[70]

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"). For other uses see Popol Vuh (disambiguation The Popol Vuh ( K'iche' for "Council Book" or "Book of the Community"

Subjects and objects

Mayan languages are ergative in their alignment. An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive In Linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of Transitive verbs and those of Intransitive 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). ^[71]

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:

Tense systems in Mayan languages are generally simple. Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs Jakaltek, for example, contrasts only past and non-past, while Mam has only future and non-future. Aspect systems are normally more prominent. In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state Mood does not normally form a separate system in Mayan, but is instead intertwined with the tense/aspect system. Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. ^[72] 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. ^[73]

Mayan languages tend to have a rich set of grammatical voices. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified 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. The antipassive voice is a Verb voice found mostly in ergative languages Like the Passive voice, the antipassive decreases the verb's valency Modern K'iche' has two antipassives: one which ascribes focus to the object and another that emphasizes the verbal action. ^[74] 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). The mediopassive voice is a Grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the Middle voice and the Passive voice. The applicative voice is a Grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a Verb to the (core patient argument and indicates the oblique The benefactive case ( abbreviated BEN) is a case used where English would use "for" "for the benefit of" ^[75]

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 words expressing a quality or state, whose syntactic properties fall in between those of verbs and adjectives in Indo-European languages. In traditional Grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies Like verbs, statives can sometimes be inflected for person but normally lack inflections for tense, aspect and other purely verbal categories. Statives can be adjectives, positionals or numerals.

Positionals, a word class characteristic of, if not unique to, the Mayan languages, are statives with meanings related to the position or shape of an object or person. Mayan languages have between 250 and 500 distinct positional roots:

Telan ay jun naq winaq yul b'e. The root is the primary lexical unit of a Word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents
There is a man lying down fallen on the road
Woqan hin k'al ay max ek'k'u.
I spent the entire day sitting down
Yet ewi xoyan ay jun lob'aj stina.
Yesterday there was a snake lying curled up in the entrance of the house

In these three Q'anjob'al sentences,^[76] 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 derivational affixes of several kinds, most of which specify transitivity or voice. In Linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from ^[77]

Some Mayan languages allow incorporation of noun stems into verbs, either as direct objects or in other functions. However, there are few affixes with adverbial 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").

Writing systems

Page 9 of the Dresden Codex showing the classic Maya language written in Mayan hieroglyphs (from the 1880 Förstermann edition)

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. Maya codices (singular Codex) are folding Books stemming from the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently The script was a mix between a logographic and a syllabic system. ^[78]

In colonial times Mayan languages came to be written in a script derived from the Latin alphabet; orthographies were developed mostly by missionary grammarians. ^[79] 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). The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG (may be translated into English as Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages) is a Guatemalan organisation Orthographies for the languages of Mexico are currently being developed by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI). The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas ("National Indigenous Languages Institute" better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency

Glyphic writing

Main article: Maya script

The pre-Columbian Maya civilization 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. The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican Civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the Pre-Columbian Americas A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. Mesoamerica, like Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, is one of the few places in the world where writing has developed independently 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. The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous Pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the Tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states The Zoque are an indigenous people of Mexico; they speak variants of the Zoque languages. Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the republic of Mexico. It is generally agreed that the Maya writing system was adapted from one or more of these earlier systems, and a number of references identify the undeciphered Olmec script as its most likely precursor. Cascajal Block is a writing tablet-sized Serpentine slab which has been dated to the early first millennium BCE incised with hitherto unknown characters that may represent ^[80]

In the course of the deciphering of the Maya hieroglyphic script it has become evident that it was a fully-functioning writing system in which it was possible to express any sentence of the spoken language unambiguously. The system is of a type best classified as logosyllabic,^[81] in which symbols (glyphs or graphemes) can be used as either logograms or syllables. A glyph is an element of writing Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol whether interchangeable or context-dependent are called Allographs the abstract unit they In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds

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 out phonetically, syllable by syllable, using these symbols. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech ^[82] In practice however, almost all inscriptions of any length were written employing a combination of syllabic signs and word signs (called logograms), similar to Japanese or ancient Egyptian practice.

Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico

At least two major Mayan languages have been confidently identified in hieroglyphic texts, with at least one other language probably identified. Palenque ( Bàak' in Modern Maya) is a Maya archeological site near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas 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. The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically-attested member of the Mayan language family. 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. Yucatec Maya ("Maaya T'aan" in the revised Orthography of the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala) is a Mayan language spoken in The Yucatán Peninsula, in Southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. Three of the four extant Maya codices are based on Yucatec. Maya codices (singular Codex) are folding Books stemming from the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic 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. The region of the Chiapas highlands are located in the southern-most state of Mexico, Chiapas. ^[83] Other regional varieties and dialects are also presumed to have been used, but have not yet been identified with certainty. ^[84]

Use and knowledge of the Maya script continued until the 16th century Spanish conquest at least. The Spanish Conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish Conquistadores ' against the Late Postclassic Maya states and Bishop Diego de Landa described the use of hieroglyphic writing in the religious practices of Yucatecan Maya, which he actively prohibited. Diego de Landa Calderón ( 12 November, 1524 &ndash 1579 was Bishop of Yucatán. De Landa and the Spanish colonizers of the Mayan area destroyed large numbers of codices written in hieroglyphs, effectively ending the Mesoamerican tradition of literacy in a native script.

Modern orthography

Since the colonial period, practically all Maya writing has used Latin characters. 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. Alfredo Barrera Vázquez (1900&mdash December 28, 1980) was a Mexican Anthropologist, Linguist, academic and Mayanist scholar ^[85] 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). The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG (may be translated into English as Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages) is a Guatemalan organisation Other major Maya languages, primarily in Mexico, such as Yucatec, Tzotzil and Tzeltal, are not generally included in this reformation. Thus, names of archaeological sites and other items of historical record in these regions retain the standard (rather than 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) the following set of conventions is applied. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants

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

Main article: Mesoamerican literature

From the Classic period to the present day, a body of literature has been written in Mayan languages. The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early Writing in the Mesoamerican region which date from 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. Maya codices (singular Codex) are folding Books stemming from the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic Amatl (āmatl amate or papel amate) is a form of Paper that was manufactured in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. ^[86]

Shortly after the Spanish conquest, the Mayan languages began to be written with Latin letters. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. 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. For other uses see Popol Vuh (disambiguation The Popol Vuh ( K'iche' for "Council Book" or "Book of the Community" 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 Rabinal Achí is a Maya theatrical play performed in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Achi is a Mayan language very closely related to K'iche' ( Quiché in the older orthography ^[87] 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 Annals of the Cakchiquels (in Anales de los Cakchiqueles, also known by the alternative Spanish titles Anales de los Xahil, Memorial 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 Mayan Chilam Balam books are named after Yucatec towns such as Chumayel Mani and Tizimin and are usually collections of disparate texts in which Mayan and Spanish traditions ^[88] The only surviving book of early lyric poetry, the Songs of Dzitbalche by Ah Bam, comes from this same period. The of the Songs of Dzitbalché ( libro de los cantares de Dzitbalché is the source of almost all the ancient Mayan lyric Poems that have survived and is closely ^[89]

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. ^[90]

Almost no literature in indigenous languages was written in the postcolonial period (after 1821) except by linguists and ethnologists gathering oral literature. ^[91] 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. The K'iche' language ( Quiché in Spanish) is a part of the Mayan language family Humberto Ak'ab'al also Ak'abal or Akabal (born 1952 Momostenango, Totonicapán department) is a K'iche' Maya ^[92]

See also

• Mayan sign languages

Notes

References

External links

Maya civilization Maya architecture Maya calendar Mayan languages Maya mythology Maya peoples Maya religion Maya society

• The Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages - Spanish/Mayan site, the primary authority on Mayan Languages (Spanish)
• The Mayan Languages- A Comparative Vocabulary contains more than 40,000 entries for 31 Mayan languages
• Ethnologue Mayan language family tree, with ISO codes
• Mayan languages from the Rosetta Project
• Officializing Mayan Languages in the Guatemalan Peace Accord
• Online bibliography of Mayan languages at the University of Texas