|
MAYAN LANGUAGES
The Mayan languages (alt: Maya languages[1]) constitute a family of related languages spoken in Mesoamerica from southeastern Mexico to northern Central America and as far south as Honduras. Their common ancestor, known as Proto-Mayan, is reconstructed with a time depth of at least 5000 years, and many Mayan languages are still spoken as a primary or secondary language by more than 4 million indigenous Maya. Although Spanish is an official language of the majority of the region's present-day countries, many Mayan languages continue to be widely spoken in the area. In 1996, Guatemala recognized twenty-one Mayan languages by name,[2] and Mexico recognizes another five not spoken in Guatemala.
In pre-Columbian times, several forms and regional variants of Mayan languages were reflected in the Mayan writing system adopted and developed by peoples of the Maya civilization. Particularly from the period of Mesoamerican chronology known as the Classic period (c. 250-900 CE) and up to as late as the Spanish Conquest, this logosyllabic script was written on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices.
Overview
Mayan languages are all descended from a single proto language called Proto-Mayan or in Maya Nab'ee Maya' Tzij (The old Maya Language) [3]. This Proto Mayan language was once spoken in 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. The Proto Mayans lived side by side by speakers of Xinka, Lenca and Mixe-Zoquean languages.
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 Cholan 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 Cholan variant in the southern area and Yucatecan in the northern area.
The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language but many Mayan languages are still very viable although some are in endangered status.
Yucatecan branch
The Yucatecan branch of the Mayan family includes four languages.
The most commonly spoken Maya language in Mexico is called Yucatec 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 today, 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 [4]. And the Lakantun or Lacandón language spoken in a few villages in the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona Chiapas.
Cholan branch
The Chol was formerly widespread, but today it is only spoken in pockets in Chiapas and Guatemala. Its close relative, the Chontal Maya language, 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.
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). Also spoken by immigrants in the USA.
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 [5] 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. It is also spoken by some immigrant Guatemalan households in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.
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' (earlier spelled 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 Chichicastenango.
The language Tz'utujil is spoken by ca. 90,000 speakers in the vicinities of the Lake Atitlán. And Kaqchikel with more than 300,000) is spoken near Guatemala City as well as north of lake Atitlan.
The Uspantek language is native only in municipio Uspantán, 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 Quiche-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'eq'chi 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.
Huastecan branch
The Wastek language (also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec), spoken in the Mexican states of Vera Cruz 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.
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 the Alta Verapaz department and also has a some speakers in El Salvador.
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.
Genealogy of the Mayan languages
Linguistic Features of Mayan languages
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.
Phonological features
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 long and short vowels : aa, ee, ii, oo and uu,
And some languages like Yukatek and Uspantek and Mam have developed tonal 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] |
| Affricate |
|
|
ts [ʦ] |
ts' [ʦ’] |
ch [ʧ] |
ch' [ʧ’] |
|
|
|
| Fricative |
|
s [s] |
x [ʃ] |
j [x] |
h [h] |
| Nasal |
m [m] |
n [n] |
|
nh [ŋ] |
|
| Liquids |
|
l [l]/ r [r] |
|
|
|
| Glide |
|
|
y [j] |
w [w]; |
|
Grammatical features
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", or ti' na meaning door in Tzotzil is literally "house-mouth". Or Classic K'iche' u-wach ulew literally "its face the earth" meaning "on 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".
- 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.
- They often have inflections marking the body position of a person doing an action.
- They are synthetic and agglutinative and inflect both object and subject on the verb.
- They have elaborate systems of grammatical voice, some Mayan languages distinguishing passives, middle voice, antipassive, focal antipassive, incorporational antipassive, instrumental and referential voice. [6]
Relation to Mesoamerican writing
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 Yucatec 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 Yucatec. 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.
See also
Notes
- ^ 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.
- ^ see: http://hemisphereinitiatives.org/promise.htm#accord
- ^ Nora C. England "Autonomia de Los Idiomas Mayas: Historia e identidad" Cholsamaj. 1994.
- ^ Ethnologue 1986 survey counted 12 speakers
- ^ http://www.larutamayaonline.com/history/idiomas2.html]
- ^ Nora C England 1994 pp98
References
- England, Nora C., 1994, Autonomia de los Idiomas Mayas: Historia e identidad. (Ukuta'mil Ramaq'iil Utzijob'aal ri Maya' Amaaq'.) Cholsamaj. Guatemala.
- Lenkersdorf, Carlos, Los hombres verdaderos. Voces y testimonios tojolabales. Lengua y sociedad, naturaleza y cultura, artes y comunidad cósmica, (1996) Siglo XXI. ISBN 968-23-1998-6
Handbook of Middle American Indians, 1967, 1969, R. Wauchope (series ed.). Vol 7 (ethnographic sketches of Mayan groups), Volume 5 (linguistic sketches and other useful materials). F 1434, H 3, LAC (ref).
- Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman, Annual Review of Anthropology. 1985. "Mayan Linguistics: Where are We Now?".
Bibiliography of Maya related topics from the University of Texas Anthropology website
External links
ISO-codes for Mayan languages
Ethnologue Iso-code map for Mayan language family
|