Mayan

Phonological Evolution of Proto-Mayan

Each Mayan ethnic group and language differs from each other in the way that they have evolved from the Proto-Mayan language. Specific differences by each ethnic group include:

Mayan Family (Current)

Change from Proto-Mayan to Current Phonology

Huastecan

/r/ ► /j/

/ŋ/ ► /h/

/w/ ► /b/

Yucatecan

/r/ ► /j/

Palatal plosives ► /tS or t/

/t/ ► /tS/ in word final position

Tonal distinctions for vowels (high/low)

Ch’olan

/r/ ► /j/

Short /a/ ► / ɨ/

Long /e/ and /o/ ► /i/ and /u/

Distinctive vowel length has been lost

Mamean

/r/ ► /tS or t/

palatal plosives ► /ts and ts’/

Retained /q/ and /q’/ sounds

All eastern branches

Palatal plosives ► /t and t’/

/ŋ/ ► /x/

Quichean

Palatal plosives ► /tS and tS’/

Retained /q/ and /q’/ sounds

Q’anjobalan

/ŋ/ ► /n/

Retained /q/ and /q’/ sounds

Wastek

Only language to have /kw/

Kaqchikel (Quichean)

/w/ ► /j/ (in polysyllabic words)

/ɓ/ ► /ʔ/ (in polysyllabic words)

Distinctive vowel length has been lost

Preserved central lax vowel (like schwa)

Tz'utujil (Quichean)

/w/ ► /j/ (in polysyllabic words)

/ɓ/ ► /ʔ/ (in polysyllabic words)

Q'anjobalan-Chujean

Distinctive vowel length has been lost

Uspantek (Quichean)

Tonal distinctions for vowels (high/low)

Tzotzil (Tzeltalan)

Tonal distinctions for vowels (high/low)

The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Ch'olan show that they separated from the other Mayan languages before the changes found in other branches happened.

Other phonological rules include:

• The sound [h] as not been retained in any languages, but does impact other sounds based on its position within a word. For example, for languages that do still have vowel length, /h/ may lengthen a preceding vowel. In some languages /h/ became /w/, /j/, /ʔ/, /x, or disappeared

• “One distinctive characteristic of Mayan languages is their use of glottalized consonants.” An apostrophe after the sound marks it as glottalized.

A complete phonetic alphabet for the Mayan languages, as well as information on pronunciation and spelling, can be found here: http://mayamayan.homestead.com/ortho.html

Grammar

Complexity:

Many of the languages tend to have long, complex words containing many prefixes and suffixes. A good example is:

• The phrase “the teacher” in Tzotzil is “li jchanubtasvaneje.” This expression consists of the following pieces: li = ‘the’, j =‘human agent’, chan =‘learn’, ub =‘become’, tas =‘causative’, van =‘habitually’, ej =‘nominalizer’ and e = ‘end of phrase’. So, the meaning of this word is literally ‘one who habitually causes (someone) to learn something’.

Word order:

Word order varies by language, and rarely follows the same format as the English language. Following are examples of the various word orders for different Mayan languages:

• Yucatecan, Tzotzil and Tojolab'al = verb+object+subect (VOS)

• Mamean, Q'anjob'al, Jakaltek and one dialect of Chuj =verb+subject+object (VSO)

• Only Ch'orti' = subject+verb+object (SVO), which is the same as the English language

• Other Mayan languages allow both VSO and VOS word orders

Nouns:

• Mayan nouns are fairly simple. They inflect only for number (plural or singular), and, when possessed, for person and number of their possessor.

• There are no cases or genders in Mayan languages.

• Relational nouns are used for location and relationships between entities. Body parts are used primarily, so “head” will replace “on top of.” For example, a Maya language speaker might say ”'the mountain's head' (literally 'its head the mountain') to mean 'on (top of) the mountain'”.

Voice:

In the Proto-Mayan laguage, voice was typically expressed with passive construction and an antipassive rule that diminished the importance of the agent in a phrase

Current Mayan languages use the following types of voice:

• Mediopassive (middle and passive voices simultaneously)

• Incorporational (incorporating a direct object into the verb)

• Instrumental (promoting the instrument to object position)

• Referential

Classes:

Mayan languages typically contain the following word classes:

• Verbs

• Adjectives

• Nouns

• Statives (predicate that expresses quality or state; can be adjectives, positionals or numbers)

Mayan languages also have between 250 and 500 distinct positional roots. Positionals relate to the position, shape, or person. For example, in the following Q'anjob'al sentences, the positionals are telan (“something large or cylindrical lying down as if having fallen”), woqan (“person sitting on a chairlike object”), and 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

Verbs are marked for:

• Aspect (i.e. past tense vs. irregular past tense)

• Tense; this varies by language (i.e. past/non-past tenses vs. future/non-future tenses)

• The person of the subject (i.e. 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person)

• The person of the object (in the case of transitive verbs, which require a subject and 1+ objects))

• Plurality of person

There are also different classes of very productive derivational affixes, most of which specify transitivity or voice. Mayan languages have few affixes with adverbial meanings, nor do they have affixes with the kind of meanings expressed by English modal auxiliary verbs.

Compounding of noun stems together is extensive. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. Mayan languages are ergative. This means that the subject of an intransitive verb is treated the same as the object of a transitive verb. For examples of how this system works, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#Subjects_and_objects.

Mayan languages have two sets of prefixes (or, in some cases such as in Tzotzil, suffixes) that serve the function of Indo-European pronouns.

Counting

In Mayan languages, classifers accompany numbers which identify the object(s) being counted. Classes might be specified by animate/inanimate or shape. Depending on the language, classifiers may be an affix, free form, or a pronoun. “When counting 'flat” objects,' a different form of numeral classifier is used than when counting round things, oblong items or people”. For an example of counting in Mayan languages, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#Numeral_classifiers.

Writing/Spelling

• All Mayan writing uses Latin characters (similar to the English language).

• The Diccionario Maya Cordemex established the first acceptable orthography in Yucatec. As mentioned above, the ALMG has since established orthography for the Guatemalan languages based on the Diccionario Maya Cordemex.

• The AMLG orthography can be found in the following table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#Modern_orthography

Vocabulary

• For some typical words (including differences) from the Yucatacen, Quichean, and Cholan families, please visit: http://www.native-languages.org/fammay_words.htm.

• For some typical phrases from the Yucatec language (part of the Yucatacen family, please visit: http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maya/mayatab1.html).

Sign Language

• Yucatec Sign Language is separate from Mexican Sign Language and is spoken by both hearing and deaf rural Mayas. Because both hearing and deaf Mayans speak Yucatec Sign Language, the deaf are accepted and integrated into the community.

• In other regions, the deaf are not as widely accepted. For example Highland Maya Sign Language, also known as “mute language,” is sometimes used for segregation.

Education

Note: Accessibility to formal education varies according to which country a person resides in. For country specific information, please refer to the country page, or www.wikipedia.org

Accessibility to formal education varies according to which country a person resides in. In the Mayan families, oral tradition is a primary form of non-formal education that passes down the values and history of the Mayan community. Emphasis is placed upon familial education, socialization, and non-formal education, with productivity, discipline and determination ranked as highly important. Working skills are one of the most valuable abilities a child must learn. These skills vary depending on the child’s gender, with females learning household tasks, bringing up children, tending to the animals, and craftwork. Males are taught to work the land, paid employment, and some child rearing tasks. By the age of 15, it is expected that the children carry out their expected tasks independently.

When families were asked about their expectations of school for their children, they do not make strong demands. Families believe the advantage of formal education is that their children will learn to speak, read and write in Spanish, as well as other skills such as math. Parents may be reluctant to send their children to school, as they may waste time playing with other children, and being exposed to poor influences, rather than spending all of their time in school learning.

Perceptions of Disabilities

Disability is viewed as a punishment from God for many Mayan people. People with disabilities often do not have access to services, have few human rights, and may face a great deal of discrimination. Families often hide their family members with disabilities, or overprotect them for fear of what other people will say about their disabled family member. Because of this, there is little information on the number of people with disabilities in Mayan culture.

US Based Mayan Population

Unfortunately, there is very little information on Maya language speakers in Oregon. However, there are some details on the prevalence of this population in the United States:

• “Between 1989 and 2000, there was a significant migration of Mayans to the US. According to a study conducted in 2004 by the Guatemala Office of the International Organization of Migration (IOM), there are 139,702 Mayan-speaking immigrants in the US.” (Dardon, 2005).33)

• “There are especially large and cohesive Guatemalan Maya groups residing in various communities in Florida, Texas, Rhode Island, and California, and dispersed throughout the 50 states and Canada.”

• "In some areas of the United States, Maya do not emphasize their indigenous identity as strongly as they do their Guatemalan nationality…Maya elders in Guatemalan home communities worry that migration to the United States has made the Maya forget who they are…Though some argue that the Maya are losing their culture by adopting non-indigenous ways, others point out that the Maya are adaptive and resilient and have centuries of experience reworking Maya identities in light of dominating and intrusive cultures."

Implications for the SLP

• This has provided a general outline about the language structure and cultural aspects of the Mayan language. It is important to know that while there is a shared identity among the Mayan sub-groups and language families, the majority of Mayan people identify with a particular ethnic group above anything else. As such, when working with a Maya family, find out more about their particular ethnic group from both their perspective and any outside research you are able to do.

• Topics such as healthcare and education vary more by country of origin versus specific Mayan language. As such, it is recommended that you visit the web page on this site for a family's home country to learn more about these areas.

• It is important to be mindful when approaching a Maya family about the topic of disability as it differs quite significantly from US culture. Because disability is thought of as loss of the soul and/or punishment by the Maya gods, families may not be as willing or forthcoming when speaking about it with you.

• Many Maya families from Guatemala moved to the area due to political unrest. Keep in mind that this may be a difficult topic of discussion.

• Oral tradition is a primary form of non-formal education for Maya families, with emphasis placed on familial education. Parents may be reluctant to send their children to school, as they may waste time playing with other children, and being exposed to poor influences, rather than spending all of their time in school learning.