Mayan languages
| 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 |
| Linguistic classification | language family descended from Proto-Mayan. See below for details. |
| Subdivisions |
|
| ISO 639-2 / 5 | ine |
 | |
Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages[1]) constitute a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya of whom more than 4 million live in Guatemala, around 2 million in Mexico, tens of thousands in Belize, and small numbers in Honduras and El Salvador. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized twenty-one Mayan languages by name,[2] and Mexico recognizes another eight not spoken in Guatemala.
The Mayan linguistic family is one of the best documented and most studied of the Americas, and their common ancestor known as Proto-Mayan, existed at least 5000 years ago and has been partially reconstructed.
The Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, a sprachbund developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica, and all Mayan languages show the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. Mayan languages also show a set grammatical and typological features that set it apart from other languages of mesoamerica such as the use of a wide range of "positionals" to signal position of objects, ergative morphosyntactic alignment and elaborate systems of voice and aspect including several types of passive and antipassive constructions.
During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history Mayan languages were written in the Maya hieroglyphic script. 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, but fell out of use and was forgotten during the first centuries of the Spanish Colonization of the Americas. The use of the Maya script was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization (c. 250-900 CE). The surviving corpus of over 10,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices,[3] written in the hieroglyphic script, combined with the rich postcolonial literature in Mayan languages written in latin script, provide a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history that is unparalleled in the Americas.
History
Mayan languages are descendants of a single proto-language, called Proto-Mayan or in Maya Nab'ee Maya' Tzij ("the old Maya Language").[4] This Proto-Mayan language is thought to have been spoken in the Guatemalan Cuchumatanes highlands[5] where the first expansion occurred around 2200 BCE resulting in the first splitting of the Huastecan branch from Mayan proper which then split into Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Cholan. The Cholan speakers then moved into the Chiapas highlands and came into contact with speakers of Mixe-Zoquean languages. In the Archaic period particularly loanwords from Mixe-Zoquean seem to have entered the Mayan language at an early state. This has led scholars to hypothesize that the early Mayas were dominated by speakers of Mixe-Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec culture.[6] Early contact is also documented between Mayan and the Xinca and Lenca languages, but in this case the transfer is from Mayan to Xinca and Lenca, while few or no early loanwords from these languages have entered Mayan: this in turn suggest a period of Mayan dominance over Lencan and Xincan speakers, possibly during the Classic period.
By the Classic period, which is the first period in which the Mayan language is documented in writing, Proto-Mayan had split into at least two dialects. Both of these are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions and both are commonly referred to as Classic Maya. One dialect was spoken in the Yucatán peninsula and became the ancestor of the Yucatecan languages Yukatek, Itza', Mopan and Lakantun. The other dialect was spoken in Chiapas and the entire highland region and became the ancestor of the Ch'olan languages Chontal, Ch'ol, and Ch'orti' and its now extinct sister language Ch'olti'. That the split between these two groups had already happened in Classical times can be seen through the Classic hieroglyphic inscriptions which in general use the Ch'olan variant in the southern area and Yucatecan in the northern area. The Huastecan and Western branch were also differentiated at this time but no hieroglyphic inscriptions are known in these dialects, probably because the Ch'olan and Yucatecan varieties served as prestige dialects throughout the Mayan region.
The wide influence of the Mayan culture and languages during this period is demonstrated by the etymology of the English word "hurricane". At the root of "hurricane" is the name of a Classic Mayan deity associated with tempests called Jun Raqan "one leg" [7]; but the word came into English indirectly, probably through Carib and Spanish. This suggests that Classic Maya traders had spread their influence beyond Mesoamerica to the Caribbean region.
During the Spanish colonization of Central America, Maya as well as most other indigenous languages were subjugated to the Spanish language. However since the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others[8], the influences of Spanish in Mayan have not been as substantial as it was, for example, in Nahuatl. There remains a high percentage of monolinguals in many Mayan language communities to this day.
Nonetheless, the Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language and some Mayan languages are endangered although many others remain very viable with speakers in all ages and a Mayan language in use in all areas of society.
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" for describing Mayan languages, as this word was sometimes historically used to make a racist distinction between Amerindian and European languages [9].
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.
Genealogy and classification
Relations with other families
A wide range of proposals have attempted to link the Mayan family to other language families or isolates; however none of these proposed affiliations have obtained general support across the linguistic community, and Mayan languages as a family remain unconnected with any others.
Examples of such former proposals, which have all now been abandoned, include linking Mayan with Chipaya-Uru, Araucanian, Lenca, P'urhépecha and Huave. Mayan has also been included in different Hokan and Penutian hypotheses.
According to Campbell the most promising proposal is the "Macro-Mayan" hypothesis which posits linkages from Mayan to Mixe-Zoquean languages and Totonacan, but the current state of research is insufficient to securely support the hypothesis.[10] Joseph Greenberg included Mayan in his Amerind hypothesis which has been rejected by most historical linguists as baseless.
Internal subdivision
The Mayan languages comprise an extremely well-documented language family whose internal classification scheme is widely accepted and established. Minor unresolved differences in genealogical classification include the positioning by some scholars (e.g. Campbell and Kaufman 1985) of Cholan and Q'anjob'alan-Chujean as forming a separate western branch (as in the diagram below) whereas other linguists classify these as two distinct branches emanating from the proto-language.
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, spoken in Chiapas, which became extinct some time before 1982.[11]
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.[12] It has a rich literature developed after the Spanish Colonial era, and remains common as the first language in rural areas in Yucatán, where in many towns even residents 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,[13] and
- Lakantun or Lacandón, spoken in a few villages in the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, state of Chiapas.
Ch'olan branch
The Ch'olan languages were formerly widespread throughout the maya area, but today the language with most speaker is Ch'ol is only spoken by 130,000 speakers[14] in Chiapas. Its close relative, the Chontal Maya language (not to be confused with Tequistlatecan two of which are also referred to as Chontal), is spoken by 55,000[15] in Tabasco state, Mexico. Another closely related language, now endangered, is Ch'orti', which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala[16]. It was earlier also spoken in Honduras and El Salvador but with a current population estimated around 10 in Honduras the Hondureño variant is considered moribund. Ch'olti' which was the sister language of Ch'orti' is now extinct. 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.
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 populations (Tzotzil 265,000 and Tzeltal 215,000 according to Ethnologue 1990 census). Tzotzil and Tzeltal populations have large portions of monolinguals.
Q'anjob'alan branch
Q'anjob'al spoken by 77,700 in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala (Ethnologue 1998).
The language Jakaltek (also called Poptí) is spoken[17] 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 Mototzintlec), a language with less than 200 speakers in the Chiapan villages of Tuzantán and Mototzintla.
The region of Q'anjob'alan speakers in Guatemala, due to genocidal razed-earth policies during the Guatemalan Civil War and also because of its close proximity to the Mexican border, was the source of a number of refugees. Thus there are now small Q'anjob'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.
Chujean
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. Tojolab'al is spoken in northeastern Chiapas by 36,000 people.
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.
Q'eqchi', which constitutes its own subbranch within K'ichean-Mamean 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.
The Uspantek language which also springs directly from the Quichean-Mamean node 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.
Mamean
Apart from Mam, which is spoken by 150,000 people in the departments of San Marcos and Cuchumatanes, the languages of the Mamean branch are Ixil, Akatek, Awakatek and Tektitek (or Teko). The Akatek language is spoken in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia, which are municipalities in the department of Huehuetenango.
The Awakatek language is native to 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán, a municipality in the Department of Huehuetenango. Ixil is spoken by 18,000[18] in the department El Quiché. Tektitek is spoken by 1,265 in the municipality of Tectitán, and by 1000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing.[19]
Core K'ichean
K'iche'[20], the Mayan language with the largest population, is spoken by more than two million speakers in the Guatemalan highlands [21] and in Guatemala City. The famous Maya mythological document the Popol Vuh 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.
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.
Poqom
the Poqom languages are most closely related to Core K'ichean with which it forms a Poqom-K'ichean subbranch on the Quichean-Mamean node.[22] The Poqomchi’ language is spoken by 90,000 people[23] 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 by ca. 30,000 people[24] in several small pockets, the largest of which is in the Alta Verapaz department but which extend to 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. 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 art and hieroglyphics.
Phonological overview of the Mayan family
The modern Mayan languages have evolved from a common ancestor that has been reconstructed (Campbell and Kaufman 1985) using the comparative method.
The following section will establish an overview of the way the sounds of Proto-Mayan are reflected in modern Mayan language groups. Mayan languages are characterized by a predominant CV or CVC syllable structure only allowing consonant clustes across syllable boundaries. Usually roots are monosyllabic.
Following the reconstruction of Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman the Proto-Mayan language had the following sounds[25]:
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| High | [i] | [iː] | [u] | [uː] | ||
| Mid | [e] | [eː] | [o] | [oː] | ||
| Low | [a] | [aː] | ||||
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | implosive | plain | ejective | plain | ejective | plain | ejective | plain | ejective | plain | ||
| Stops | [p] | [ɓ] | [t] | [t'] | [tʲ] | [tʲ'] | [k] | [k'] | [q] | [q'] | [ʔ] | |
| Affricate | [ʦʰ] | [ʦ’] | [ʧʰ] | [ʧ’] | ||||||||
| Fricative | [s] | [ʃ] | [X] | [h] | ||||||||
| Nasal | [m] | [n] | [ŋ] | |||||||||
| Liquids | [l] [r] | |||||||||||
| Glide | [j] | [w] | ||||||||||
The classification of mayan languages is based on changes shared between groups of languages. For example the western group that includes Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan all changed the Proto-Mayan phoneme /*r/ into /j/ while some languages of the eastern branch retained /r/ (K'ichean) and others turned changed it into [ʧ](Mamean). The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan show that they split off from the other mayan languages before this change happened. In the table below the western languages that underwent the change from *r > j are shown in green, Mamean languages that changed *r to [ʧ] in the beginning of words and [t] wordfinally are shown in yellow, and K'ichean which retained *r is shown in orange.
| Proto-Mayan | Wastek | Yukatek | Mopan | Tzeltal | Chuj | Q'anjob'al | Mam | Ixil | K'iche' | Kaqchikel | Poqomam | Q'eqchi' |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *[raʔʃ] "green" |
[jaʃ] | [jaʔʃ] | [jaʔaʃ] | [jaʃ] | [jaʔaʃ] | [jaʃ] | [ʧaʃ] | [ʧaʔʃ] | [raʃ] | [rɐʃ] | [raʃ] | [raːʃ] |
| *[war] "sleep" |
[waj] | [waj] | [wɐjn] | [waj] | [waj] | [waj] | [wit] (Awakatek) |
[wat] | [war] | [war] | [wɨr] | [war] |
The palatalized plosives [tʲ'] and [tʲ] are not carried down into any of the modern families. Instead they are reflected differently in different branches allowing a reconstruction of these phonemes as palatalized plosives. In the eastern branch (Chujean-Q'anjob'alan and Cholan) they are reflected as [t] and [t']. In Mamean they are reflected as [ts] and [ts'] and in K'ichean as [ʧ] and [ʧ’]. Yukatek stands out from the other western languages since here the palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into [ʧ] and sometimes [t].[26] The table below shows the reflexes of he lost palatalized plosives in the modern Mayan branches.
| Proto-Mayan | Yukatek | Q'anjob'al | Poptí | Mam | Ixil | K'iche' | Kaqchikel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *tʲeːʔ "tree" |
[ʧeʔ] | [teʔ] | [teʔ] | [tseːʔ] | [tseʔ] | [ʧeːʔ] | [ʧeʔ] |
| *tʲaʔŋ "ashes" |
[taʔn] | [tan] | [taŋ] | [tsaʔX] | [tsaʔ] | [ʧaːX] | [ʧaX] |
Proto-Mayan velar nasal *[ŋ] is reflected as [x] in the eastern branches (K'ichean Mamean), as [n] in Q'anjob'alan, Cholan and Yukatekan, and only conserved as [ŋ] in Chuj and Poptí. [28] In Huastecan *[ŋ] is reflected as [h].
The table below shows that the western languages Yukatek and Q'anjob'al have changed *[ŋ] to n, whereas the eastern languages have changed it to [x], except for Poptí which retains [ŋ].
| Proto-Mayan | Yucatec | Q'anjob'al | Ixil | K'iche' | Poptí |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *ŋeːh "tail" |
[neːh] | [ne] | [xeh] | [xeːʔ] | [ŋeh] |
Grammatical overview
Wordclasses
The wordclasses of Mayan languages are normally verbs, statives adjectives and nouns. Statives is a class of predicative words that have the meaning of a quality or state. Like verbs they can sometimes be inflected for person, but normally they lack inflections for tense and aspect and other purely verbal inflectional categories. Statives can be adjectives, positionals or numerals.
Positionals
The wordclass called positionals is characteristic of, if not unique for, the Mayan languages. Positionals are predicative words that state something about the position or shape of an object or person - the Mayan languages have between 250 and 500 distinct roots describing position. The examples below[30] show the use of positionals in the Q'anjob'al language, the positionals being telan "something large or cylindrical lying down as if having fallen", woqan "person sitting on a chairlike object", xoyan "curled up like a rope or snake".
- Telan ay jun naq winaq yul b'e.
- "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"
Morphology (word structure)
The morphology of Mayan languages is not as complicated as in other Mesoamerican languages, although it is still considered agglutinating and polysynthetic. Mayan words tend to be morphologically simple (although not as simple as, for example, Indo-European words). Verbs are marked for aspect or tense, person of subject and for transitives also person of object, and for plural of person. There are also different classes of very productive derivational affixes, most of which specify transitivity or voice. Few affixes with adverbial meanings are found in Mayan, nor affixes with the kind of meanings expressed in english auxiliary verbs (can, will, may etc.).
Some Mayan languages allow incorporation of noun stems into verbs, as direct objects or in other functions. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. Compounding of noun stems is extensive. Another common feature in Mayan is the use of clitics and 'free forms' (particles) which syntactically are in-between words and affixes. For this reason some analyses of Mayan languages skip the word level althogether, and their descriptions operate with only morphemes and phrases.
Morphosyntactic alignment
Mayan languages are ergative. This means that the grammatical treatment of the subject of an intransitive verb is treated the same as the object of an transitive verb. Ergativity in mayan is shown by cross referencing pronominal markers on verbs - i.e. the same set of affixes is used to mark subjects on intransitive vebs and patient/objects of transitive verbs while a separate set of affixes mark agent/subject on transitive verbs. Mayan languages have two sets of pronominal prefixes one set called A (or absolutive) which is used to mark patients/subjects of intransitive verbs and patient/objects of transitive verbs. And another prefix set called B used to show subject/agents of transitive verbs and also to mark possessors on nouns.
The uses of the pronominal prefixes of "set A" and "set B"
The ergative system of alignment of Subject/object and Agent/patient is different from the accusative system used by the Indo-European languages (such as English or Spanish)- and can be hard to understand for speakers of such languages. Therefore it can be useful to use certain illustrative ways of thought to understand the way the ergative system differs from others.
Carlos Lenkersdorf, an anthropologist, has studied the Tojolabal language and argues that a native Tojolabal speaker makes no cognitive distinctions between subject and object or even between active and passive, animate and inanimate, seeing both subject and object as active participants in an action. For instance, in Tojolabal rather than saying “I teach you”, one says “I-teach you-learn”. This interpretation he uses to explain the mayan ergative system in the following way. Lenkersdorf sees the prefixes of Set B as typically describing a kind of "owner" or agent whereas the prefixes of set A describe a kind of experiencer or patient. Andconsequently verbal phrase like "I teach you" then takes to kinds of prefixes one describing the owner of the action (I) and one describing the experiencer of the action (you). In Mayan languages it can be argued that there is such a connection between owners of things and owners of actions because both are expressed by the pronominal prefixes of set B. And both experiencers of actions, and of states of being are expressed by the prefixes of set A - thus the experiencers of the sentences "I enter" (I), and "We are pretty" (we), "I teach you" (you) are expressed by set A prefixes although one experiences "entering", another experiences "being pretty", and another "being taken".
| Usage | Example | Example language(s) | Example gloss *Lenkersdorf-style (mnemonic only) |
translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set A prefix | ix- [iʃ-] (2nd person pl.) | All Quichean-Mamean | y'all experience * | varies |
| Subject of an intransitive verb |
x-ix-ok [ʃiʃok] | Kaqchikel | completive-set A 2nd p. pl.(you guys)-enter | "You guys entered" |
| Object of a transitive verb |
x-ix'ru-chöp [ʃiʃrutʃɔp] | Kaqchikel | Completive-2.person plur. object(A)-3.person Sg. subject(B)-take Completive-y'all experience-his-take * |
"He/she took you guys" |
| Subject when a noun or adjective used as predicate |
ix-jeb'el [iʃxeɓel] | Kaqchikel | set A 2nd p. pl.(you guys)-pretty y'all experience-pretty * |
"You guys are pretty." |
| Usage | Example | Example language(s) | Example gloss *Lenkersdorf-style (mnemonic only) |
translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set B Prefix | ru- [ru-] (3rd person sing.) | All Quichean-Mamean | "his/hers/its" | - |
| Possessive | rukej ri achin [ru-kyeːʃ ri atʃin] | Kaqchikel | his-horse the man | "the mans horse" |
| Subject/agent of a transitive verb |
x-ix-ru-chöp [ʃiʃrutʃɔp] | Kaqchikel | Completive-2.person plur. object(A)-3.person Sg. subject(B)-take Completive-y'all experience-his-take * |
"He/she took you guys" |
| Fixpoint of a relative noun (see below) | u-wach ulew | classic K'iche' | his-face earth | "on the earth" |
The Verb
The mayan verb has a number of positions for affixes relative to the verb root. Aspect, tense, and mode, as well as subject and object, are signalled by combinations of prefixes and suffixes:
| aspect, mode, tense | Class A prefix (see above) | Class B prefix (see above) | root | aspect, mode, voice | plural | |
| k- | in- | a- | ch'ay | -o | - | |
| Incompletive | 1. person sg. Patient | 2. person sg. Agent | hit | Incompletive | - | |
| K'iche': kinach'ayo English: "You are hitting me" | ||||||
Tense/Aspect systems
Grammatical tense systems in Mayan languages are generally simple. Jakaltek for example contrasts only past and non-past. Mam has only future and non-future. However the aspect systems are normally more prominent.
Mood does not normally form a separate system in Mayan, but is instead intertwined with the tense/aspect system.[31] Kaufman has reconstructed the following tense/aspect/mood system for proto-Mayan: Incompletive aspect, progressive aspect, completive/punctual aspect, imperative, potential/future, optative, and perfective.[32]
Voice
Proto-Mayan had an antipassive rule, downplaying the importance of the agent in relation to the patient, and at least one passive construction. Modern K'iche' has two antipassives one which ascribes focus to the object and another that emphasizes the verbal action. [33] Other voice related constructions occurring in mayan languages are the mediopassive, the incorporational voice (incorporating a direct object into the verb), the instrumental voice (promoting the instrument to object position), and referential voice (a kind of applicative promoting an indirect argument like benefactive or recipient to the objct position).[34]
Nouns and Nounphrases
The mayan noun is fairly simple it inflects only for number (plural or singular) and if possessed for person and number of its possessor. There are no cases or genders in mayan languages. Compounding of noun roots to new nouns is extensive, and there are many morphological processes to derive nouns from verbs.
Classifiers
Mayan languages use numeral classifiers - that is when counting it is necessary to explicitly state the "class" of what one is counting, and the numeral itself cannot appear on its own without an accompanying classifier. The class is usually assigned according to whether the object is animate or inanimate, or according to the object's general shape.[35] Thus, for example when counting "flat" objects a different form of numeral classifier is used than when counting something round or oblong or persons. In some Mayan languages (for example Chontal) the classifiers are affixes attached to the numeral but in others (for example Tzeltal) they are free forms. In Jakaltek they can be used as anaphorical pronouns.
The table below demonstrates how in some Mayan languages the meaning of an expression can be altered by using different numeral classifiers. The examples comes from the Chontal language; the first (left-hand side) expression employs the classifier -tek which is used to count plants, and it is understood that the object being enumerated is the entire tree. The right-hand side expression uses the classifier -ts'it for counting long, slender objects, and its intended meaning is therefore counting only a stick or branch of the tree.[36]
| untek wop (one-tree Jahuacte) "one jahuacte tree" | unts'it wop (one-stick jahuacte) "one stick from a jahuacte tree" | ||||
| un- | tek | wop | un- | ts'it | wop |
| one- | "plant" | jahuacte tree | one- | "long.slender.object" | jahuacte tree |
Possession
Possession is expressed by prefixing the pronominal prefixes of Set B to the noun, as explained above. This way of forming possessives, with the prefixed possessed noun preceding the possessor, is a main diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area and is recurrent throughout Mesoamerica.
Mayan languages often contrast alienable and inalienable possession. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts inalienably possessed wetʃel "My photo" (of myself) with alienably possessed wetʃele "My photo (of someone else)". The prefix we- marks the first person singular possessor while the absence of the -e possessive sufix in the first form marks inalienable possession.[37]
Relative nouns
Since Mayan languages do not make widespread use of prepositions (the mayan languages that have prepositions normally have only one), the rely on other means to express locations and other relations between entities. The means they use for this is also recurrent throughout Mesoamerica and is another diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. They make a special use of nouns to denote relations. Nouns that have the function of describing a relation in the way prepositions do in the languages that has them are called "relational nouns". Relational nouns are possessed by the constituent that is the fixpoint of the relation and the relational noun describes which relation exist between the two. For example "its top the mountain" would mean "on top of the mountain". In Mayan most relational nouns are metaphorically derived from body part so for example "top of" is expressed by the word head. In Mayan then one would say "Its head the montain" to mean "on top of the mountain". For example in Classic K'iche' from the Popol Vuh u-wach ulew, meaning "on the earth", is literally "its face the earth". Other metaphorical uses of bodyparts to form locatives and relational nouns are Tzeltal/Tzotzil Ti' na (mouth of house) meaning "door" or Kaqchikel chirupam (mouth its-stomach) to mean "inside" (in this case, the “chi” or mouth is serving as a prepositional prefix, but it is not a full-fledged preposition as it is only used to form certain relational nouns). A special relative noun can also be used to “possess” the indirect object(s) of some verbs.
Syntactical overview
Proto-Mayan is thought to have had a "Verb Object Subject" (VOS) basic word order with possibilities of switching to VSO in certain circumstances: complex sentences, sentences where Object and Subject were of equal animacy and when the Subject was definite.[38] Today Yucatecan, Tzotzil and Tojolab'al have a fixed VOS basic word order. Mamean, Q'anjob'al, Jakaltek and one dialect of Chuj have a fixed VSO basic word order. Only Ch'orti' has a basic SVO wordorder. The rest allow both VSO and VOS word orders.
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, with a number of references identifying the Olmec script as the most likely precursor.[39] 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. Use of the Hireoglyphic script continued at least until the spanish conquest where Bishop Diego de Landa has described the use of hieroglyphic writing in the religious practices of Yucatecan mayas, practices that he actively prohibited.
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; and since then all practical Maya writing has come in the form of Latin characters. In the colonial period orthographic conventions were based on Spanish, but never followed a fixed standard. A standard orthography is only recently becoming established as the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (ALMG), formed in 1996, has established the conventions shown below.
The ALMG orthography employs the following letters when writing modern Mayan languages (the graphemes are in bold and the phonemes in square brackets).
| a [a] | aa [aː] | e [e] | ee [eː] | i [i] | ii [iː] | o [o] | oo [oː] | u [u] | uu [uː] | ä [ɐ]* | ë [ə] | |
| b' [ɓ] | b [b] | ch [ʧ] | ch' [ʧ’] | h [h] | j [x] | k [k] | k' [k'] | l [l] | m [m] | n [n] | nh [ŋ] | p [p] |
| q [q] | q' [q] | r [r] | s [s] | t [t] | t' [t'] | tz [ʦ] | tz' [ʦ’] | w [w] | x [ʃ] | y [j] | ' [ʔ] |
- Only used in Kaqchikel
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 used.
| ch [ʧ] | ch' [ʧ’] | xh [ʃ] | tx [ʈʂ] | tx' [ʈʂ’] | x [ʂ] |
Literature
Since the Classic period a body of literature has been written in the Mayan languages. The earliest texts that have been preserved are largely monumental inscriptions documenting rulership, succession, and ascension, conquest and calendrical and astronomical events. However it is likely that other kinds of literature were written as well but in perishable media such as codices made of bark, only four of which survived the campaign of destruction by Spanish missionaries.
Shortly after the Spanish conquest the Mayan languages began to be written with Latin letters. Colonial literature in Mayan languages include:
- The famous Popol Vuh, a mythological and mytho-historical narrative written in 17th century K'iche' (although the text itself claims to be a copy of an older book).
- The Annals of the Cakchiquel and the Titulos de Totonicapán both written in K'aqchikel.
- The historical and prophetical accounts in the books of Chilam Balam written in Yukatek Maya, and
- A 17th century theatrical work, Rabinal Achí, written in the Achí dialect of K'iche'.
In addition to these singular works, many early grammars of indigenous languages, so called "artes", were written by priests and friars. We know of grammars composed in K'aqchikel, K'iche', Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Yukatek, and many of these also had collections of Catholic cathechism.
Almost no literature in indigenous languages was written in the postcolonial period (i.e. after 1821) except by linguists and ethnologists gathering oral literature. The Mayan peoples had been largely illiterate in their native languages, at best learning only in Spanish. In recent times this has begun to change and since the establishment of the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages literacy has begun to develop and a number of indigenous writers have started a new tradition of writing in Mayan languages. Notable among this new generation is K'iche' poet Humberto Ak'ab'al, whose works are often published in dual-language Spanish/K'iche' editions.
See also
- Maya script
- Maya peoples
- Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
- Mesoamerican languages
- Spanish Conquest of Yucatán
- List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
- Mesoamerican writing systems
- Mesoamerica
- Apocalypto (feature film in Yukatek Maya language)
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 Spence, et. al. (1998)
- ^ Kettunen and Helmke (2005), p.6.
- ^ England (1994).
- ^ Campbell (1997), p.165.
- ^ For a view attributing a Mixe-Zoquean language to the Olmec, see for example Campbell and Kaufman (1976).
- ^ The J sounds as [h] in the ALMG orthography.
- ^ The last independent Mayan kingdom of Tayasal was not conquered until 1697
- ^ see Identification of the varieties of Chinese for this issue in other contexts
- ^ Campbell (1997 p.165.
- ^ As reported in Campbell and Canger (1978).
- ^ Ethnologue, 2004.
- ^ Ethnologue 1986 survey counted only 12 remaining native speakers
- ^ Ethnologue report on Ch'ol de Tila,Ethnologue report on Ch'ol de Tumbalá
- ^ Ethnologue report on Chontal de Tabasco
- ^ Ethnologue report on Chorti
- ^ http://www.larutamayaonline.com/history/idiomas2.html]
- ^ Ethnologue report on Ixil
- ^ Ethnologue report for Tektitek
- ^ in Spanish, Quiché
- ^ Ethnologue, 2004
- ^ Campbell (1997) p.163.
- ^ Ethnologue report on Eastern Poqomam, Ethnologue report on Western Poqomchi'
- ^ Ethnologue report on Southern Poqomam, Ethnologue report on Central Poqomam, Ethnologue report on Eastern Poqomam
- ^ As presented in England (1994), p.35.
- ^ England (1994), p.35.
- ^ adapted from cognate list in England (1994)
- ^ England (1994), pp.30-31.
- ^ adapted from cognate list in England (1994)
- ^ England 1994, p. 87
- ^ Suaréz (1983), p.71.
- ^ England, 1994 p.126
- ^ Campbel, 1997 p.164
- ^ England, 1994 p.97-103
- ^ See for e.g. Tozzer (1977 [1921]), pp.103, 290–292.
- ^ Example follows Suaréz (1983), p.88.
- ^ Suaréz, 1983 p.85
- ^ Lyle Campbell (1997) refers to studies by Norman and Campbell ((1978) "Toward a proto-Mayan syntax: a comparative perspective on grammar." in Paper in Mayan linguisticsed. Nora C England pp. 136-56. Columbia: Museum of Anthropology, University of Missouri) and by England ((1991) Changes in basic wordorder in Mayan languages, IJAL 57:446-86)
- ^ Such as Schele and Freidel (1990); Soustelle (1984).
References
- Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 4). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-195-09427-1.
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- Campbell, Lyle (1978). "Chicomuceltec's last throes". International Journal of American Linguistics. 44: pp.228-30.
{{cite journal}}:|pages=has extra text (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); templatestyles stripmarker in|author=at position 1 (help); templatestyles stripmarker in|coauthors=at position 5 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
- Campbell, Lyle (1976). "A Linguistic Look at the Olmec". American Antiquity. 41 (1): pp.80-89.
{{cite journal}}:|pages=has extra text (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); templatestyles stripmarker in|author=at position 1 (help); templatestyles stripmarker in|coauthors=at position 5 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
- Campbell, Lyle (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.
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- Edmonson, Munro S. (1968). "Classical Quiche". In in Norman A. McQuown (Volume ed.) (ed.). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 5: Linguistics. R. Wauchope (General Editor). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. pp.249–268. ISBN 0-292-73665-7.
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- England, Nora C. (1994). Autonomia de los Idiomas Mayas: Historia e identidad. (Ukuta'miil Ramaq'iil Utzijob'aal ri Maya' Amaaq'.) (2nd edition ed.). Guatemala City: Cholsamaj. ISBN 84-89451-05-2.
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- Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition (online version ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
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- Kettunen, Harri (2005). Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs (PDF). Wayeb and Leiden University. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
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- 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.
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- Longacre, Robert (1968). "Systemic Comparison and Reconstruction". In in Norman A. McQuown (Volume ed.) (ed.). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 5: Linguistics. R. Wauchope (General Editor). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. pp.117–159. ISBN 0-292-73665-7.
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- McQuown, Norman A. (1968). "Classical Yucatec (Maya)". In in Norman A. McQuown (Volume ed.) (ed.). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 5: Linguistics. R. Wauchope (General Editor). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. pp.201–248. ISBN 0-292-73665-7.
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- Schele, Linda (1990). A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-07456-1.
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- Soustelle, Jacques (1984). The Olmecs: The Oldest Civilization in Mexico. New York: Doubleday and Co. ISBN 0-385-17249-4.
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- Suaréz, Jorge A. (1983). The Mesoamerian Indian Languages,. Cambridge University Press.
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- Tozzer, Alfred M. (1977) [1921]. A Maya Grammar ((unabridged republication) ed.). New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-23465-7.
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- Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib' (OKMA) (1993). Maya' chii'. Los idiomas Mayas de Guatemala. Guatemala City: Cholsamaj. ISBN 89451-52-4.
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- Spence, Jack (1988). "Promise and Reality: Implementation of the Guatemalan Peace Accords". Hemispheres Initiatives.
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External links
- The Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages - Spanish/Mayan site, the primary authority on Mayan Languages
- The Mayan Languages- A Comparative Vocabulary contains more than 40,000 entries for 31 Mayan languages
- English Words and their Classic Maya Equivalents
- Ethnologue Mayan language family tree
- Yucatec - English Dictionary
- Languages of Guatemala and Belize
- Mayan languages from the Rosetta Project
- Officializing Mayan Languages in the Guatemalan Peace Accord
- Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín - teaching Spanish and Mayan languages in Guatemala
- Anabel Ford on the history of misunderstanding Mayan language and culture
- Bibiliography of Maya related topics from the University of Texas Anthropology website