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Overview of Maya Mam
Overview of Maya Mam
Mam describes both a Mayan language and a pueblo, meaning a nation and a people. Mam, sometimes referred to as Maya-Mam, is a Mayan language. The language originates from and is spoken in many municipios (municipalities) in Guatemala, specifically in the departments of Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, and Retalhuleu, as well as in parts of Southern Mexico. The map below shows where the various Mayan languages are spoken in Guatemala.
From these ancestral regions, Maya Mam communities have been forcibly displaced to many countries, including the United States (US). In the US, there are many vibrant Mam diasporas including one in the San Francisco Bay Area. In particular, there is an established and growing community of Mam speakers in Oakland, California. While no official counts exist, there are an estimated 30,000-40,000 Mam speakers living there. In Oakland, Mam community members have opened shops, restaurants, and other businesses focused on their community practices, foods, and indumentaria. While many Mam communities have migrated to the Bay Area, the second largest population of Mam migrants are from San Juan Atitán (more below).
As multiple generations of Mam speakers have grown up and are growing up in the Bay Area, there are ever greater needs to maintain the Mam language and to create awareness of the language and the communities.
It is from this context that we’ve created this learning learning resource. This “curriculum” is based on a fictional story of Sofía, a 16-year old girl who was born in San Juan Atitán and raised in Oakland, California. Her family migrated from San Juan Atitán when she was two years old. This learning resource follows Sofía as she “returns” to San Juan Atitán for the first time and deepens her knowledge of the Mam language with her aunt and other community members.
Language Varieties
Language Varieties
One result of Mam being widely spoken throughout Guatemala, Mexico, the US, and beyond is that there are many different ways to speak the language. We refer to different ways of speaking as “varieties.” Varieties of the Mam language can be quite different from each other in many ways: from pronunciation, meaning of words and word usage, and even different sentence-making strategies. As you use this learning resource, keep in mind that we are teaching a specific variety of Mam, where there is further variation between neighborhoods, generations, and individuals. Throughout the learning resource you will find some notes about other varieties of Mam, but this is not generally a learning resource about the variations or their language practices.
San Juan Atitán, Guatemala
San Juan Atitán, Guatemala
San Juan Atitán (Xjan Xwan in the Mam language) has an estimated population of 25,165 people, and it is located at around 8,000 feet above sea level. Most people identify with their municipio and so refer to themselves as San Juaneros.
We base this learning resource on what we call San Juan Atitán (SJA) Mam. Speakers of this variety live in many places, including Oakland, California and other cities in the United States. In addition, people living in San Juan Atitán speak different varieties. Therefore, we emphasize that we use principles and patterns that we’ve heard or grown up with in San Juan Atitán even though we know it does not represent the full range of language practices in San Juan Atitán or by people from there.
How to Use this Learning Resource
How to Use this Learning Resource
This learning resource is for beginners as a first introduction to the Mam language. In this resource, we center the story of Sofía and how she would encounter real conversations in San Juan Atitán as a member of the community who is visiting for the first time and learning new aspects of the language. We recognize that this is not how language resources are usually structured, but we feel it is important to provide learners with real conversations and contexts to learn from.
The learning path is divided into 5 sections plus one foundational lesson on the alphabet. Each section includes 4 lessons. Each lesson has a conversation, vocabulary, metalinguistic notes, and a grammar lesson. Each Section also includes one cultural lesson relevant to the specific conversations and/or contexts in the section.
Each conversation is accompanied by audio so you can hear what the language sounds like and make connections between the spoken and written language. In addition, there are illustrations in each lesson that are based on photos from San Juan Atitán so you can see the context for the conversations. The vocabulary lessons are integrated with Quizlet, where we have built flashcard sets with audio so that you can learn word by word. The metalinguistic notes provide context and insight into different conversational practices that may differ from English or Spanish. Finally, the grammar lessons provide explanations and examples of how to build words and sentences in Mam.
The entire resource is in SJA Mam, Spanish, and English. We present this multilingual resource as an invitation to diverse communities who may wish to learn Mam. We also encourage bilingual learners of Mam to toggle between the English and Spanish translations, as each is only an approximation of the Mam meaning. We believe that engaging multilingually will enrich your learning experience.
Support and collaborators
Support and collaborators
This learning resource is the result of a collaboration between Silvia Lucrecia Carrillo Godinez (Maya Mam), Cristina S. Méndez (Chicana), and Tessa Scott (white American). We began working together in 2020 on several projects in the Mam language. In 2024, Silvia Lucrecia Carrillo Godinez became a Language Pedagogy Fellow through a collaborative program of the Latin American Indigenous Studies Alliance (LAISA), a partnership between Latin American studies programs at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Utah. With the impetus provided by the fellowship, we began working more centrally on this linguistic resource.
We would like to express our deep appreciation and gratitude to the LAISA team, including Adriana Roque Corona, Molly Aufdermauer, Julia Byrd, and the interns: Elodia Ramírez Pérez, Angelina Trujillo, and Edber Dzidz Yam.
We would like to give special thanks to Elena Luis Minera (Maya Mam, San Juan Ostuncalco), who created all the beautiful illustrations set in San Juan Atitán. We are also grateful to Geovany Aguilar García, Vilma Angélica Martin Jacinto, and María Angélica Carrillo Godínez, who participated in the review and validation of the content and provided very specific feedback for its improvement. We would also like to thank Macario Carrillo, Glendy Vicente, Astrid Elisa García, and María Angélica Carrillo for lending their voices to the recording of the conversations included in the book. See the "About Us" page for more information about our contributors.
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