Maya Language : An Ancient Communication System
The Maya Language forms language families that are spoken across Mesoamerica and North Central America. Approximately 6 million indigenous Maya speak Maya Language today across Guatemala, Mexico and Belize.
Classic Maya Language is historically the oldest form of the Maya language that is documented. There are inscriptions that are dated pre-Columbian that are documented historically as Classic Mayan language. The Maya Language as it is spoken today descends from Proto-Mayan language that was spoken, it is believed 5,000 years ago. Proto-Mayan is an ancestor root of three derived Mayan Language offshoots. They are Ch’olan, Yukatecan and Huastecan. The contemporaries of these languages that are spoken today are the Chol Language and Yukatek or Yukatec, which is Mayan. The speakers of these two Mayan forms of language can also understand many words in classic Maya language.
Classic Maya language is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian Maya written language system. There are inscriptions found in the lowland regions dating c200-900CE. The Maya writing system was a hieroglyphic system in which logographic and syllabic symbols were used.
In the dialects of the Ch’ol and Tzitzol sub families of Maya language, linguistically they have a rare order of words that is not found through out the world. They order their words are spoken or written as verb/ object/ subject / or subject/verb/object. Many of the ancient inscriptions are written in this format and the understanding of Ch’ol is crucial to deciphering the inscriptions. Many of the Maya Language families tend to have long complex words with a lot of prefixes and suffixes. For example the word “teacher” in the Tzotzil dialect li jchanubtasvaneje; (pronounced: nli chon nesh quala hay) consists of the following breakdown: li=the, j=human agent, chan=learn, ub=become, tas=cuasitive (deriving from the verb), van=habitually, ej=nominalizer and e=end of phrase. Put all these together and it is translated as literally as “ one who habitually causes (someone) to learn something. Another distinctive characteristic of the Mayan Language is their use of glottalized consonants in their pronunciations. These sounds are formed by closing off the vocal cords behind a consonant like p, t, or k. The larynx is raised to build up extra pressure that results in a pop after the consonant is sounded by releasing pressure in the lips or tongue. Glottalized sound is written by using an apostrophe after the consonant. The Tzeltal phrase c’ux c’ajc’al (pronounced coosh-cack-cal) means, “It’s hot out”. Literally it means, “the sun/day hurts” When the Spanish conquistadors invaded Maya lands their languages that were indigenous became eclipsed by the Spanish language. The Mayan language began to fade from important parts of Mayan society. Thus colonialism brought to an end Mayan, administration, religion and literature. However the Maya region was more resistant to colonial influences than other regions. This is the primary reason it is believed that the Maya language is still retained with many monolingual language speakers still amongst the Maya people. It is still a fact that many of the Maya language is moribund and endangered because of Spanish language domination in that area. Despite its endangerment we find across age groups that the native Maya language is still spoken within the modern Maya society.
Mayan Civilization Ancient Maya History
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