Mayan languages

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Stephen Houston, John Robertson and David Stuart have suggested that the specific variety of Chʼolan found in the majority of Southern Lowland glyphic texts was a language they dub "Classic Chʼoltiʼan", the ancestor language of the modern Chʼortiʼ and Chʼoltiʼ languages. They propose that it originated in western and south-central Petén Basin, and that it was used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. However, Mora-Marín has argued that traits shared by Classic Lowland Maya and the Chʼoltiʼan languages are retentions rather than innovations, and that the diversification of Chʼolan in fact post-dates the classic period. The language of the classical lowland inscriptions then would have been proto-Chʼolan.

The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships, is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Maya identify first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "Kʼicheʼ"; but they also recognize a shared Maya kinship. Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. Fabri writes: "The term Maya is problematic because Maya peoples do not constitute a homogeneous identity. Maya, rather, has become a strategy of self-representation for the Maya movements and its followers. The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) finds twenty-one distinct Mayan languages." This pride in unity has led to an insistence on the distinctions of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. But, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with Racism overtones in the past, as scholars made a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in Mesoamerica in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages.See chapter 2 for a thorough discussion of the usage and meanings of the words "dialect" and "language" in Mesoamerica.

In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages), which was founded by Maya organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords, it has been gaining a growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples.

Such has been the scale of immigration from Central America to the U.S. that K'iche' (or Quiche) and Mam are as of 2025 two of the top languages in use at Immigration Court. In the San Francisco East Bay, a prime destination, Mayan languages flourish on the radio, local news outlets, and classrooms.

A wide range of proposals have tried to link the Mayan family to other language families or language isolate, but none is generally supported by linguists. Examples include linking Mayan with the Uru–Chipaya languages, Mapuche language, the Lencan languages, Purépecha, and Huave language. Mayan has also been included in various Hokan languages, Penutian, and Siouan hypotheses. The linguist Joseph Greenberg included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis, which is rejected by most historical linguists as unsupported by available evidence.

Writing in 1997, Lyle Campbell, an expert in Mayan languages and historical linguistics, argued that the most promising proposal is the "Macro-Mayan" hypothesis, which posits links between Mayan, the Mixe–Zoque languages and the Totonacan languages, but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis. In 2015, Campbell noted that recent evidence presented by David Mora-Marin makes the case for a relationship between Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean languages "much more plausible".

One point still at issue is the position of Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean. Some scholars think these form a separate Western branch (as in the diagram below). Other linguists do not support the positing of an especially close relationship between Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean; consequently they classify these as two distinct branches emanating directly from the proto-language. An alternative proposed classification groups the Huastecan branch as springing from the Chʼolan–Tzeltalan node, rather than as an outlying branch springing directly from the proto-Mayan node.

The closest relatives of the Chʼolan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch, Tzotzil language and Tzeltal language, both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal people).Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005) Family Tree for Tzeltalan accessed March 26, 2007. Tzeltal has tens of thousands of monolingual speakers.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charl47547es D. Fennig (eds.). " Tzeltal" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition, (2015). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Qʼanjobʼal is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango department, with small populations elsewhere. The region of Qʼanjobalan speakers in Guatemala, due to genocidal policies during the Civil War and its close proximity to the Mexican border, was the source of a number of refugees. Thus there are now small Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek, and Akatek populations in various locations in Mexico, the United States (such as Tuscarawas County, Ohio and Los Angeles, California), and, through postwar resettlement, other parts of Guatemala. Jakaltek (also known as PoptiʼGordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005). Gordon (2005) recognizes Eastern and Western dialects of Jakaltek, as well as Mochoʼ (also called Mototzintlec), a language with less than 200 speakers in the Chiapan villages of Tuzantán and Mototzintla.) is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalitiesJakaltek is spoken in the municipios of Jacaltenango, La Democracia, Concepción, San Antonio Huista and Santa Ana Huista, and in parts of the Nentón municipio. of Huehuetenango. Another member of this branch is Akatek language, with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). " Akateko" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition, (2015). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Chuj language is spoken by 40,000 people in Huehuetenango, and by 9,500 people, primarily refugees, over the border in Mexico, in the municipality of La Trinitaria, Chiapas, and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Tojolabʼal is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005) Tojolabal: A language of Mexico. and Chuj: A language of Guatemala. both accessed March 19, 2007.

Qʼeqchiʼ (sometimes spelled Kekchi), which constitutes its own sub-branch within Quichean–Mamean, is spoken by about 800,000 people in the southern Petén, Izabal and Alta Verapaz departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. In El Salvador it is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005). Ethnologue report on Qʼeqchi, accessed March 07, 2007.

The Uspantek language, which also springs directly from the Quichean–Mamean node, is native only to the Uspantán municipio in the department of El Quiché, and has 3,000 speakers.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005) Ethnologue report for Uspantec, accessed March 26, 2007.

Within the Quichean sub-branch Kʼicheʼ (Quiché), the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 Kʼicheʼ Maya in the highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango and in the Cuchumatán mountains, as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City. The famous Maya mythological document, Popol Vuh, is written in an antiquated Kʼicheʼ often called Classical Kʼicheʼ (or Quiché). The Kʼicheʼ culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. Qʼumarkaj, near the present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché, was its economic and ceremonial center. Achi language is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco and Rabinal, two municipios of Baja Verapaz. In some classifications, e.g. the one by Lyle Campbell, Achi is counted as a form of Kʼicheʼ. However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as Kʼicheʼ.The Ethnologue considers the dialects spoken in Cubulco and Rabinal to be distinct languages, two of the eight languages of a Quiché-Achi family. Raymond G., Gordon Jr. (ed.). Ethnologue, (2005). Language Family Tree for Mayan, accessed March 26, 2007. The Kaqchikel language is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area stretching from Guatemala City westward to the northern shore of Lake Atitlán.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005). Family Tree for Kaqchikel, accessed March 26, 2007. Tzʼutujil has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005). Ethnologue report on Eastern Tzʼutujil, Ethnologue report on Western Tzʼutujil , both accessed March 26, 2007. Other members of the Kʼichean branch are Sakapultek, spoken by about 15,000 people mostly in El Quiché department,Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). " Sakapulteko" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition, (2015). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. and Sipakapense, which is spoken by 8,000 people in Sipacapa, San Marcos.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). " Sipakapense" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition, (2015). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

The largest language in the Mamean sub-branch is Mam language, spoken by 478,000 people in the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango. Awakatek is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán, another municipality of Huehuetenango. Ixil language (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the "Ixil Triangle" region of the department of El Quiché.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005) Ethnologue report on Nebaj Ixil , Chajul Ixil & San Juan Cotzal Ixil, accessed March 07, 2008. Tektitek (or Teko) is spoken by over 6,000 people in the municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005) Ethnologue report for Tektitek, accessed March 07, 2007.

The Poqom languages are closely related to Core Quichean, with which they constitute a Poqom-Kʼichean sub-branch on the Quichean–Mamean node. Poqomchiʼ is spoken by 90,000 peopleGordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), (2005). Ethnologue report on Eastern Poqomam, Ethnologue report on Western Poqomchiʼ, both accessed March 07, 2007. in Purulhá, Baja Verapaz, and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz: Santa Cruz Verapaz, San Cristóbal Verapaz, Tactic, Tamahú and Tucurú. Poqomam language is spoken by around 49,000 people in several small pockets in Guatemala.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). " Poqomam" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition, (2015). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

The other three Yucatecan languages are Mopan language, spoken by around 10,000 speakers primarily in Belize; Itzaʼ, an extinct or moribund language from Guatemala's Petén Basin;There were only 12 remaining native speakers in 1986 according to Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.). Ethnologue, (2005). and Lacandón or Lakantum, also severely endangered with about 1,000 speakers in a few villages on the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, in Chiapas.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). " Lacandon" Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition, (2015). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

The palatalized and are not found in most 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-Qʼanjobalan and Chʼolan) they are reflected as and . In Mamean they are reflected as and and in Quichean as and . Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into and sometimes .

The Proto-Mayan velar nasal * is reflected as in the eastern branches (Quichean–Mamean), in Qʼanjobalan, Chʼolan and Yucatecan, in Huastecan, and only conserved as in Chuj and Jakaltek.

The meaning denoted by a noun may be altered significantly by changing the accompanying classifier. In Chontal, for example, when the classifier -tek is used with names of plants it is understood that the objects being enumerated are whole trees. If in this expression a different classifier, -tsʼit (for counting long, slender objects) is substituted for -tek, this conveys the meaning that only sticks or branches of the tree are being counted:Example follows

Mayan languages often contrast alienable and inalienable possession by varying the way the noun is (or is not) marked as possessed. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts inalienably possessed "my photo (in which I am depicted)" with alienably possessed "my photo (taken by me)". The prefix we- marks the first person singular possessor in both, but the absence of the -e possessive suffix in the first form marks inalienable possession.

Mayan languages have two sets of affixes that are attached to a verb to indicate the person of its arguments. One set (often referred to in Mayan grammars as set B) indicates the person of subjects of intransitive verbs, and of objects of transitive verbs. They can also be used with adjective or noun predicates to indicate the subject.

Another set (set A) is used to indicate the person of subjects of transitive verbs (and in some languages, such as Yucatec, also the subjects of intransitive verbs, but only in the incompletive aspects), and also the possessors of nouns (including relational nouns).Another view has been suggested by Carlos Lenkersdorf, an anthropologist who studied the Tojolabʼal language. He argued that a native Tojolabʼal 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 Tojolabʼal rather than saying "I teach you", one says the equivalent of "I-teach you-learn". See

Tense systems in Mayan languages are generally simple. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts only past and non-past, while Mam has only future and non-future. Aspect systems are normally more prominent. Grammatical mood does not normally form a separate system in Mayan, but is instead intertwined with the tense/aspect system.Suaréz (1983), p. 71. Kaufman has reconstructed a tense/aspect/mood system for proto-Mayan that includes seven aspects: incompletive, progressive, completive/punctual, imperative, potential/future, optative, and perfective.

Mayan languages tend to have a rich set of grammatical voices. Proto-Mayan had at least one passive construction as well as an antipassive rule for downplaying the importance of the agent in relation to the patient. Modern Kʼicheʼ has two antipassives: one which ascribes focus to the object and another that emphasizes the verbal action. Other voice-related constructions occurring in Mayan languages are the following: mediopassive, incorporational (incorporating a direct object into the verb), instrumental (promoting the instrument to object position) and referential (a kind of applicative promoting an indirect argument such as a benefactive or recipient to the object position).

Positionals, a class of roots characteristic of, if not unique to, the Mayan languages, form stative adjectives and verbs (usually with the help of suffixes) with meanings related to the position or shape of an object or person. Mayan languages have between 250 and 500 distinct positional roots:

In these three Qʼanjobʼal 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").

As in other Mesoamerican languages, there is a widespread metaphorical use of roots denoting body parts, particularly to form locatives and relational nouns, such as Kaqchikel -pan ("inside" and "stomach") or -wi ("head-hair" and "on top of").

A Mayan loanword is cigar. The Mayan word for "tobacco" is sic and sicar means "to smoke tobacco leaves". This is the most likely origin for cigar and thus cigarette. Cigar, Online Etymology Dictionary.

The English word "hurricane", which is a borrowing from the Spanish word huracán is considered by some to be related to the name of Maya storm deity Huracan. However, it is more likely that the word passed into European languages from the Island Carib language or Taíno.Read & González (2000), p.200

In colonial times Mayan languages came to be written in a script derived from the Latin alphabet; orthographies were developed mostly by missionary grammarians. Not all modern Mayan languages have standardized orthographies, but the Mayan languages of Guatemala use a standardized, Latin-based phonemic spelling system developed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG). Orthographies for the languages of Mexico are currently being developed by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI).

In the course of the deciphering of the Maya hieroglyphic script, scholars have come to understand that it was a fully functioning writing system in which it was possible to express unambiguously any sentence of the spoken language. The system is of a type best classified as logosyllabary, in which symbols ( or ) can be used as either or . The script has a complete syllabary (although not all possible syllables have yet been identified), and a Maya scribe would have been able to write anything , syllable by syllable, using these symbols.

At least two major Mayan languages have been confidently identified in hieroglyphic texts, with at least one other language probably identified. An archaic language variety known as Classic Maya predominates in these texts, particularly in the Classic-era inscriptions of the southern and central lowland areas. This language is most closely related to the Chʼolan branch of the language family, modern descendants of which include Chʼol, Chʼortiʼ and Chontal. Inscriptions in an early Yucatecan language (the ancestor of the main surviving Yucatec language) have also been recognised or proposed, mainly in the Yucatán Peninsula region and from a later period. Three of the four extant Maya codices are based on Yucatec. It has also been surmised that some inscriptions found in the Chiapas highlands region may be in a Tzeltalan language whose modern descendants are Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Other regional varieties and dialects are also presumed to have been used, but have not yet been identified with certainty.

Use and knowledge of the Maya script continued until the 16th century Spanish conquest at least. Bishop Diego de Landa Calderón of the Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán prohibited the use of the written language, effectively ending the Mesoamerican tradition of literacy in the native script. He worked with the Spanish colonizers to destroy the bulk of Mayan texts as part of his efforts to convert the locals to Christianity and away from what he perceived as pagan idolatry. Later he described the use of hieroglyphic writing in the religious practices of Yucatecan Maya in his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán.