The Mayan Languages

The Mayan Languages presents a comprehensive survey of the language family associated with the Classic Mayan civilization (AD 200–900), a family whose individual languages are still spoken today by at least six million indigenous Maya in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. This unique resource is an ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Mayan languages and linguistics. Written by a team of experts in the field, The Mayan Languages presents in-depth accounts of the linguistic features that characterize the thirty-one languages of the family, their historical evolution, and the social context in which they are spoken. The Mayan Languages: provides detailed grammatical sketches of approximately a third of the Mayan languages, representing most of the branches of the family; includes a section on the historical development of the family, as well as an entirely new sketch of the grammar of "Classic Maya" as represented in the hieroglyphic script; provides detailed state-of-the-art discussions of the principal advances in grammatical analysis of Mayan languages; includes ample discussion of the use of the languages in social, conversational, and poetic contexts. Consisting of topical chapters on the history, sociolinguistics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse structure, and acquisition of the Mayan languages, this book will be a resource for researchers and other readers with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic anthropology, language acquisition, and linguistic typology.

The Yucatan Peninsula draws many North American and European travelers each year to view the ruins of the pre-Columbian Classical Maya civilization and the abundant native flora and fauna. For these travelers, as well as armchair travelers and students, Gary Bevington has prepared the first general English-language introduction to Yucatec Maya, the native language of the people indigenous to the region. Written in nontechnical terms for learners who have a basic knowledge of simple Mexican Spanish, the book presents easily understood, practical information for anyone who would like to communicate with the Maya in their native language. In addition to covering the pronunciation and grammar of Maya, Bevington includes invaluable tips on learning indigenous languages "in the field." Most helpful are his discussions of the cultural and material worlds of the Maya, accompanied by essential words and expressions for common objects and experiences. A Maya-English-Spanish glossary with extensive usage examples and an English-Maya glossary conclude the book. Note: The supplemental audiocasette, Spoken Maya for Travelers and Students, is now available as a free download.

Kaqchikel is one of approximately thirty Mayan languages spoken in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, and, increasingly, the United States. Of the twenty-two Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, Kaqchikel is one of the four "mayoritarios," those with the largest number of speakers. About half a million people living in the central highlands between Guatemala City and Lake Atitlán speak Kaqchikel. And because native Kaqchikel speakers are prominent in the field of Mayan linguistics, as well as in Mayan cultural activism generally, Kaqchikel has been adopted as a Mayan lingua franca in some circles. This innovative language-learning guide is designed to help students, scholars, and professionals in many fields who work with Kaqchikel speakers, in both Guatemala and the United States, quickly develop basic communication skills. The book will familiarize learners with the words, phrases, and structures used in daily communications, presented in as natural a way as possible, and in a logical sequence. Six chapters introduce the language in context (greetings, the classroom, people, the family, food, and life) followed by exercises and short essays on aspects of Kaqchikel life. A grammar summary provides in-depth linguistic analysis of Kaqchikel, and a glossary supports vocabulary learning from both Kaqchikel to English and English to Kaqchikel. These resources, along with sound files and other media on the Internet at ekaq.stonecenter.tulane.edu, will allow learners to develop proficiency in all five major language skills—listening comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, and sociocultural understanding.

Developmental Trends; Development in Typical Child; Conclusion; References; VII. Cultural Significance and Lexical Retention in Tzeltal-Tzotzil Ethnobotany; Introduction; The Comparative Inventory; Analytic Categories; Cognate Sets of Tzeltal-Tzotzil Plant Names; Cultural Significance and Lexical Retention; References; VIII. Compound Place Names in Chuj and other Mayan Languages; Introduction; Sources and Identification of Chuj Place Names; The Nature of Chuj Geographical Nomenclature; Compound Chuj Place Names; Comparative Data on Compound Mayan Place Names; References.

Challenging the distinctions between “old” and “new” media and narratives about the deprecation of orality in favor of inscribed forms, The Maya Art of Speaking Writing draws from Maya concepts of tz’ib’ (recorded knowledge) and tzij, choloj, and ch’owen (orality) to look at expressive work across media and languages. Based on nearly a decade of fieldwork in the Guatemalan highlands, Tiffany D. Creegan Miller discusses images that are sonic, pictorial, gestural, and alphabetic. She reveals various forms of creativity and agency that are woven through a rich media landscape in Indigenous Guatemala, as well as Maya diasporas in Mexico and the United States. Miller discusses how technologies of inscription and their mediations are shaped by human editors, translators, communities, and audiences, as well as by voices from the natural world. These texts push back not just on linear and compartmentalized Western notions of media but also on the idea of the singular author, creator, scholar, or artist removed from their environment. The persistence of orality and the interweaving of media forms combine to offer a challenge to audiences to participate in decolonial actions through language preservation. The Maya Art of Speaking Writing calls for centering Indigenous epistemologies by doing research in and through Indigenous languages as we engage in debates surrounding Indigenous literatures, anthropology, decoloniality, media studies, orality, and the digital humanities.

Mayan civilization, renowned for its mathematics, writing, architecture, religion, calendrics, and agriculture, fascinates scholars and a wide lay public as archaeology and glyphic decipherment reveal more of its secrets. In this pathfinding study of the Mayan language family, John S. Robertson explores major changes that have occurred in the core of Mayan grammar from the earliest, reconstructed ancestral language down through the colonial languages to the modern languages that are spoken today. Building on groundwork already laid in phonological studies and in the study of the pronominal system, Robertson's examination of tense/ aspect/ mood/voice is the next logical step in the general linguistic study of Mayan. Robertson offers careful consideration of all the major subgroups of Mayan, from Yucatecan to Quichean, as they are spoken today. He also draws extensively on colonial documents assembled by bilingual Spanish-Mayan speaking clerics. These documents provide a check on the accuracy of both the reconstructed ancient language, Common Mayan, and the theoretical evolution of the modern languages from this ancestor. The study will also be of value to students of the Maya glyphs, since it discusses the grammatical system that most probably underlies the glyphic representations. Beyond its obvious interest for Mayan linguistics, the study proposes a theory of language change that will be important for all students of comparative linguistics. Robertson's work sets forth the basic, universal assumptions that provide for an appropriate description of the grammatical systems of all languages. It will be a significant reference for future researchers.

Many sample sentences provide a window onto the richness of everyday communication, with its mixture of wit, epithets, insults, riddles and aphorisms, and exchanges of information.