Mayan languages

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Mayan Mayance family
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. See below for details.
Subdivisions:	Huastecan Yucatecan Cholan Qanjobalan-Chujean Mamean Quichean Poqom
Image:Mayanmap.png

Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages<ref>In the field of linguistic studies, it has become conventional to use the form Mayan when referring to the languages, or an aspect of the language. In other academic fields, the form Maya is the preferred usage, serving both as a singular and plural noun, and for the adjectival form.</ref>) constitute a language family spoken in Mesoamerica from southeastern Mexico to northern Central America and as far south as Honduras. Their hypotheticized common ancestor, known as Proto-Mayan, existed at least 5000 years ago and has been partially reconstructed. Although Spanish is the official language across most present-day countries of the region, many Mayan languages are still spoken as a primary or secondary language by more than an estimated 6 million indigenous Maya (over 4 million in Guatemala, approximately 2 million in Mexico, tens of thousands in Belize, and small numbers elsewhere). In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized twenty-one Mayan languages by name,<ref> see: http://hemisphereinitiatives.org/promise.htm#accord</ref> and Mexico recognizes another eight not spoken in Guatemala.

During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history, several forms and regional variants of Mayan languages were reflected in the Maya script (commonly, 'Maya hieroglyphs') adopted and developed by peoples of the historical Maya civilization. With inscriptions in the Maya script dating from the latter part of the 1st millennium BCE, this logosyllabic writing system remained in use as late as the 16th-century Spanish conquest, in particular during the period of Mesoamerican chronology known as the Classic period (c. 250-900 CE). With a surviving corpus of over 10,000 individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices known,<ref>Kettunen and Helmke (2005), p.6.</ref> the Mayan languages recorded in the script provide the basis for an understanding and actual historical documentation of the pre-Columbian Era that is unparalleled in the Americas.

1 History
2 Classification
3 Sounds
4 Grammar
5 Writing systems
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links
10 ISO-codes for Mayan languages

[edit] History

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Mayan languages are all regarded as descending from a single proto-language, designated Proto-Mayan or in Maya Nab'ee Maya' Tzij ("the old Maya Language").<ref>England (1994).</ref> This Proto-Mayan language, or its early descendants, is likely to have been spoken across much of the same territory in which speakers of modern-day Mayan languages are found today: the entire Yucatán peninsula from the Pacific coast to the Caribbean in the area that now comprises Guatemala, Belize and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo. It may even have stretched into Honduras and El Salvador. Similarly, it is highly likely that a range of non-Mayan languages were also present in the region in this Archaic period of Mesoamerican history, and that the Proto-Mayas lived alongside other unrelated language speakers, such as the precursors to Xinka, Lenca and Mixe-Zoquean languages.

Image:Bonampak painting2.jpg

Maya civilization

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

Maya history

Spanish conquest of Yucatán

By the Classic period, Proto-Mayan had split into at least two subgroups of the Classic Maya language: one spoken in the Yucatán peninsula, the ancestor of the Yucatecan languages Yukatek, Itza', Mopan and Lakantun and one spoken in Chiapas and the entire highland region, the ancestor of the Ch'olan languages Ch'ol, Ch'orti' (and its now extinct sister language Ch'olti') and Chontal. That the split between these two groups had already happened in Classical times can be seen through the Classic hieroglyphic inscriptions which roughly speaking use the Ch'olan variant in the southern area and Yucatecan in the northern area.

The wide influence of the Mayan culture and languages during this period is demonstrated by the etymology of the English word "hurricane". The root is the classic Mayan deity, Jun Rakan; but the word comes to English indirectly, probably through Carib and Spanish, suggesting that classic Mayan traders had spread their influence beyond Mesoamerica to the Carribean region.

The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language, and some Mayan languages are endangered but many others are still very viable. For the modern languages, the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (Spanish acronym ALMG), with representation from the 21 language groups in Guatemala, is gaining a growing recognition as the authority in such matters as standardized orthography. This autonomous institution was established and funded as part of Guatemala's 1996 peace accords.

During the 20th century, as Mayan archaeology advanced and various nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies crossed the world stage, the various Mayan language groups began to have a shared ethnic identity as Mayans, the inheritors of the great Mayan Civilization. (The word "Maya" itself, probably based on the post-classic Yukatec city Mayapan, was associated only with parts of the Yucatan in pre-colonial and colonial times, and its current meaning is mainly based on linguistic criteria.) This identity supplements, but does not generally replace, the primary ethnic identities based on specific languages. Thus the idea of a language being "Mayan" is more salient than the idea of English being "Indo-European". Paradoxically, this pride in unity has led to a move away from the word "dialect" (Spanish dialecto) for describing Mayan languages, as this word was sometimes historically used to make a racist distinction between Amerindian and European languages (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese for this issue in other contexts).

[edit] Classification

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[edit] Yucatecan branch

The Yucatecan branch of the Mayan family includes four languages.

The most commonly spoken Maya language in Mexico is called Yukatek Maya by linguists but known simply as Maya to its speakers. It is currently spoken by approximately 900,000 people in the Yucatán Peninsula (Ethnologue 2004). It has a rich literature since the Spanish Colonial era, and remains common as the first language in rural areas in Yucatán, where in many towns even Yucatecans of Spanish ancestry have a working knowledge of the tongue.

The other three languages are

Mopan, spoken primarily in Belize,
Itza', spoken in the Petén region of Guatemala but now nearly extinct,<ref> Ethnologue 1986 survey counted only 12 remaining native speakers</ref> and
Lakantun or Lacandón, spoken in a few villages in the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, state of Chiapas.

Image:Mayanlanguageslocations.png

[edit] Cholan branch

Chol was formerly widespread, but today it is only spoken in pockets in Chiapas and Guatemala. Its close relative, the Chontal Maya language (not to be confused with Tequistlatecan which is also referred to as Chontal), is spoken in Tabasco state, Mexico. Another closely related language, now endangered, is Ch'orti', which is spoken in a region around the boundaries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. These particular languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the inscriptions of the ancient sites of the Classic era Central Lowlands.

The closest relatives of the Cholan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch: Tzotzil and Tzeltal both spoken in Chiapas by large populations (Tzotzil 265,000 and Tzeltal 215,000 according to Ethnologue 1990 census). Tzotzil and Tzeltal populations have large portions of monolinguals.

[edit] Qanjobalan branch

Tojolab'al is spoken in northeastern Chiapas by 36,000 people.

Qanjob'al spoken by 77,700 in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala(Ethnologue 1998).

Chuj In Mexico spoken by 9,500 people in the Municipio of Trinitaria, Chiapas, the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc; most are refugees from Guatemala. In Guatemala, there are approximately 40,000 speakers in the Huehuetenango district.

The language Jakaltek (also called Poptí) is spoken<ref>http://www.larutamayaonline.com/history/idiomas2.html]</ref> in the following municipalities of Huehuetenango: Jacaltenango, La Democracia, Concepción, San Antonio Huista, Santa Ana Huista and in parts of Nentón. Gordon recognizes Eastern and Western dialects of Jakaltek, [1] as well as Mocho (Also called Mototzintleco).

The Akatek language is spoken in the following municipalities of Huehuetenango: San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia.

The Awakatek language is native to 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán, a municipality in the Department of Huehuetenango.

The region of Qanjobalan speakers in Guatemala, due to the genocidal razed-earth policies during the Guatemalan Civil War and also because it is conveniently close to the Mexican border, was the source for a number of refugees. Thus there are now small Qanjob'al, Jakaltek, and Awakatek populations in various locations in Mexico, the United States (such as Tuscarawas County, Ohio), and, through postwar resettlement, other parts of Guatemala.

Tequistlatecan

[edit] Quichean-Mamean branch

In the Highlands of Guatemala are the Quichéan-Mamean Maya languages and dialects, including K'iche', Kaqchikel, Q'eqchi', Tz'utujil, and Mam.

In the Guatemalan highlands the Mayan language with the largest population, K'iche' (in Spanish, Quiché), is spoken by more than two million speakers (Ethnologue 2004). The famous Maya mythological document the Popol Wuj is written in an antiquated K'iche' often called Classical Quiché. The K'iche' language is centered around the towns Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango, and in the Cuchumatán Highlands. The K'iche' culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest with its economic and ceremonial center at the Utatlán archeological site outside of the city of Santa Cruz del Quiché.

The Tz'utujil language is spoken by ca. 90,000 speakers, in the vicinity of the Lake Atitlán. Kaqchikel with over 300,000 speakers is centered around Guatemala City, as well as to the north of Lake Atitlán.

The Uspantek language is native only to the Uspantán municipio, in the Department El Quiché, but it is notable for being the native language of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.

Achi is spoken in Cubulco and Rabinal, two municipios of Baja Verapaz. In some early classifications Achi is counted as K'iche' because of the close affiliation between those two languages. Linguist Raymond G. Gordon, Jr., considers the dialects spoken in Cubulco and Rabinal to be distinct languages, two of the eight languages of the Quiché-Achi family.[2].

Two other languages closely related to K'ich'e and Achi are the Sipakapense language is spoken in Sipacapa, San Marcos (department), and Sakapultek which is spoken by somewhat fewer than 40,000 people in El Quiché department and in Guatemala City.

The last Quichean language, Q'eqchi', is spoken by some 400,000 speakers in the southern Petén and Alta Verapaz Departments of Guatemala as well as in Belize and El Salvador.

[edit] Huastecan branch

The Wastek language (also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec), spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz and San Luis Potosí by around 110,000 people (Ethnologue 1990). It is a Mayan language although it split early from the southern branches and is now the most divergent of the Mayan languages.

Chicomuceltec was a language related to Wastek which became extinct some time before 1982.

[edit] Poqom branch

The Poqomchi’ language is spoken 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 in several small pockets, the largest of which is in the Alta Verapaz department but which extend to El Salvador.

[edit] Sign languages

Main article: Mayan sign languages

Sign languages are used in Mexico and Guatemala by certain Maya communities that have unusally high numbers of deaf inhabitants. In some villages they are known by the entire community. One writer has suggested that they are also used by some traders and traditional storytellers, as well as by an impoverished class of deaf and hard-of-hearing servants who are forbidden to speak aloud in the presence of their masters.

These sign languages are thought to be unrelated to both the "national sign languages" of Mexico (Mexican Sign Language) and Guatemala (Guatemalan Sign Language), as well as the local spoken Mayan languages and Spanish. Thus they are not technically Mayan languages, but are included here because they are related through a common ethnic identity, and may possibly show parallel evolution and/or some incidental relation to Mayan heiroglyphics.

[edit] Sounds

The Mayan languages are derived from the reconstructed Proto-Mayan and the different branches of the Mayan family each share common innovative changes to the structure of Proto Mayan which serves to distinguish them from the other branches. However some features are common in all Mayan languages.

The sounds that are common to Mayan languages are the following ones:

Five vowels: a, e, i, o and u. Some Mayan languages also distinguish between short and long vowels : aa, ee, ii, oo and uu,

And some languages like Yukatek and Uspantek and Mam have developed tone systems.

	Bilabial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
	plain	implosive	plain	ejective	plain	ejective	plain	ejective	plain
Stops	p [p]	b' ['b]	t [t]	t' [t']			k [k]	k' [k']	' [ʔ]
Affricates			ts [ʦ]	ts' [ʦ’]	ch [ʧ]	ch' [ʧ’]
Fricatives			s [s]		x [ʃ]		j [x]		h [h]
Nasals	m [m]		n [n]				nh [ŋ]
Liquids			l [l]/ r [r]
Glides					y [j]		w [w];

[edit] Grammar

Mayan languages show many features common to the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area:

They use relational nouns and locatives often derived from bodyparts, for instance chi rupam (inside) in Kaqchikel translates literally to "mouth-his-belly"; ti' na meaning door in Tzotzil is literally "house-mouth"; classic K'iche' u-wach ulew, meaning "on the earth", is literally "its face the earth".

They have the Mesoamerican possessive construction expressed with a possessive prefix: For example in Quiché u-tzi' le achih "the man's dog" literally meaning "his-dog the man". In Mayan languages the same set of possessive prefixes have many grammatical uses besides posession, such as the inflection of verbs. This has influenced Spanish usage in Mesoamerican regions including Guatemala, where constructions like "un mi chucho" ("a my dog") are heard.

They use numeral classifiers.

They have vigesimal (base-20) number systems.

They never have a verb final basic sentence form.

The generally have only one true preposition.

They often inflect the directionality or positionality of an action on the verb.

But some features are also specific for Mayan within the Mesoamerican area:

Mayan languages are ergative-absolutive languages. This means that the grammatical treatment of the subject of an intransitive verb is treated the same as the object of an transitive verb. (This feature has been used by Carlos Lenkersdorf to advance the Sapir-Worf hypothesis in relation to the Tojolabal language.)

They often have inflections marking the body position of a person doing an action.

They are synthetic and agglutinative (tending to form larger words from smaller morphemes on the fly) and inflect both object and subject on the verb.

Some Mayan languages use noun incorporation.

They have elaborate systems of grammatical voice, some Mayan languages distinguishing passives, middle voice, antipassive, focal antipassive, incorporational antipassive, instrumental and referential voice.<ref>England (1994), p.98.</ref>

[edit] Writing systems

The pre-Columbian Maya civilization developed and used an intricate and versatile writing system which, out of the various historical Mesoamerican scripts known, displays the highest degree of correspondence to a spoken language. Earlier-established civilizations to the west and north of the Maya homelands also had scripts which are recorded in surviving inscriptions, such as those of the Zapotec, Olmec, as well as the Zoque-speaking peoples of the southern Veracruz - western Chiapas area. There is however insufficient available evidence to demonstrate whether these earlier scripts were also able to fully record all, or only some, aspects of their languages (or even to be sure which language they are associated with). It is generally agreed that the Maya writing system was adapted from one or more of these preceding versions, many references (such as Schele & Freidel, 1990; Soustelle, 1984) identifying the Olmec script as the most likely precursor. The spoken language of the Olmec is unknown, and its relationship to early Maya spoken languages is still unclear.

The Maya writing system, known generally as Maya hieroglyphics, has however been confirmed as a fully-functioning writing system, in which it was possible to unambiguously express any statement of the spoken language. The script is a type best classified as logosyllabic, whose symbols (glyphs, or more formally graphemes) include both logograms and syllables. The script contains within it a complete syllabary (although not all possible syllables have been identified so far), and a Maya scribe could write an expression completely phonetically using these syllables. In practice however, almost all inscriptions of any length were written using a combination of logograms and syllabic signs.

Of the various Mayan languages, two major ones at least have been securely identified in the script, and at least one other is likely. An 'archaic' form known as Classic Maya appears predominantly, particularly in the Classic-era inscriptions of the southern and central lowland areas. This language is most closely related to the Cholan branch of the language family, whose modern-day descendants include Ch'ol, Chorti and Chontal. Inscriptions in an early Yucatecan language (antecedent to the prevalent surviving Yukatek language) are also known or proposed, particularly from the Yucatán Peninsula region and from a later period; three of the four extant Maya codices are based on Yukatek. It has also been surmised that some inscriptions found in the Chiapas region are in a Tzeltalan tongue, whose modern forms are Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Apart from these, regional variations and dialects are also presumed to have been used, but so far not securely identified.

Since the Spanish colonized the Mayan area and burned almost all of the Mayan codices, all practical Maya writing has come in the form of Latin characters. There has been much variation in the orthographic conventions of how to write each sound; this is only becoming somewhat settled since the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (ALMG), formed in 1996, has established the conventions shown above in "sounds".

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

Campbell, Lyle, ; and Terrence Kaufman (October 1985). "Mayan Linguistics: Where are We Now?". Annual Review of Anthropology 14 (1): pp.187–195. DOI:10.1146/annurev.an.14.100185.001155.

England, Nora C. (1994). Autonomia de los Idiomas Mayas: Historia e identidad. (Ukuta'mil Ramaq'iil Utzijob'aal ri Maya' Amaaq'.). Guatemala City: Cholsamaj.

Kettunen, Harri, ; and Christophe Helmke (2005). Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs (PDF), Wayeb and Leiden University. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.

Lenkersdorf, Carlos (1996). Los hombres verdaderos. Voces y testimonios tojolabales. Lengua y sociedad, naturaleza y cultura, artes y comunidad cósmica. Mexico City: Siglo XXI. ISBN 968-23-1998-6.

R. Wauchope (series ed.). (1967, 1969). "Handbook of Middle American Indians": Vol 7 (ethnographic sketches of Mayan groups), Volume 5 (linguistic sketches and other useful materials).. LCC F 1434, H 3, LAC (ref)..