Sunday, February 19, 2012

The Mayan Language Group






Although a lot of people refer to Mayan as one language with many dialects, in truth it is a language group, with many distinct languages that are in no way mutually intelligible, with a large, impressive number of regional dialects.  


The Major Languages Are As Follows:











Cholan includes two dialects of Chol, the Ch'orti language (caa) and Mayan Chontal (chf) also known as Yocot'an, not to be confused with Oaxacan Chontal which is listed as the only language of a group known as Tequistlatecan on the Ethnologue website; other linguists place that language firmly in the Hokan family.

The Tzeltalan language groups includes the Tzotzil language, which has 6 major dialects, this is the language of the Zapatista political group in southern Mexico.

Huastecan is northern most of the Mayan languages and may well be one of the oldest.  Their tradtioanl territory is in Veracruz.  There is considerable evidence to suggest that Huastec speakers may have built the unique city now known as El Tajin, which is also claimed as an ancestral site of the vanilla people, the Totonac.  Huastec has been proposed as a possible marshal language of the great city the Aztecs named Teotihuacan, certainly they as least had a neigborhood in the city, as artifacts have been found that are carved in the distinct Huastecan art style.  It has even been proposed that a proto-Huastecan language (though a weak argument) was the language of the great mother culture also named by the Aztecs:  the Olmec.

Chujean includes the Chuj language proper, with two dialects, and the Tojolabal (tjo)--they are a major group listed under the Western Mayan languages.

Kaljobalan is one the most diverse of the western groups, including two distinct dialects of the Jakalteco language, Q'anjob'al (kjb), the Akateko language (knj)--all of which are located in Central America, mostly in Guatemala, part of the ancient Maya homeland.  It also includes the Mocho language (mhc), the only member that is located in Mexico.

Ixilan includes three dialects of Ixil, and the Awakateko (agu), all of which are located in the Guatemalan highlands.

Mamean, also a highland Guatemalan group, includes five dialects of Mam and both the Tacanec language (mtz) and the Tektiteko (ttc) language.


The Greater Quichean classification is a huge group with 6 major sub-groups, one of which, Quichean, has three major subgroups of it's own!  The Greater Quichean subgroups include, along with the above mentioned Quichean:  K'ekchiPocomanSacapultecoSipacapeno & Uspantec.  The three subgroups of Quichean include two of the most wide spread and important of the Mayan languages:  Quiche-Achi (these are the people who were primary targets of extreme violence during the Guatemalan civil war), Cakchiquel (also a group caught up in the same conflict in the 1980's) and the Tzutujil group.


Yucatecan, the final group on the list is of primary importance, because of the Yucatan pennisula.  This is a group of languages that often gets most closely associated with "Mayan" in literature, especially in cook books and books on native foods of the Maya.  The Yucatan, rivals any sites in what is now central American for the number of Mayan ruins and remains of some of the greatest of the Maya city states.  In the Maya Classic period a wholly unique archetictural style, known as Puuc or Pu'uc, emeged on the Yucatan pennisula.  The group includes:  Yucatec-Lacandon, which has both the Yucatecan language proper (yua) (with two dialects) and the Lacandon language (lac) some groups of which remain among some of the last uncontacted peoples in the world  & the Mopan-Itza groups which contains the Itza language (itz), as in Chichen Itza, a highly endangered language and Mopan language (mop).  Three of these languages, Yucatan, Lacandon and Mopan are all sometimes referred to as "Maya proper," with Mopan being, for some unknown reason, most often referred to as "the Mayan language."



Some Mayan Language Resources:

This site contains a large number of links for various online Mayan resources.



Wikipedia entry for Mayan Languages




And, finally you've got to check this out!  It's a translator that will translate your phrases into Mayan glyphs.  The translator includes a surprises number of western languages, including all major Europeans languages and some smaller ones like Basque, Rheatian, Icelandic, Scottish, etc.  Additionally it also includes Swahili. Below is a translation of my entry "Mayan languages are very cool."






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