|
| |
Yucatec Maya ("Yukatek Maya" in the revised orthography of the Academia de
Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala) is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula,
northern Belize and parts of Guatemala. To native speakers, it is known only as
Maya - "Yucatec" is a tag linguists use to distinguish it from other Mayan
languages (such as K'iche' and Itza' Maya).
In the Mexican states of Yucatán, northern Campeche and Quintana Roo, Maya
remains many speakers' first language today, with approximately 800,000
speakers.
Characteristics
A characteristic feature of Yucatec Maya (and all Mayan languages) is the use of
ejective consonants - /p'/, /k'/, /t'/. Often referred to as glottalized
consonants, they are pronounced more or less like their non-ejective
counterparts, though the pronunciation is briefly halted and then released with
a characteristic popping sound. These sounds are written using an apostrophe
after the letter to distinguish them from the plain consonants (e.g., t'áan
"speech" vs. táan "chest"). The apostrophes indicating these sounds were not
common in written Maya until the 20th century but are now becoming more common.
Yucatec Maya is one of only three Mayan languages to have developed tone (the
others are Uspantek and one dialect of Tzotzil). It distinguishes between vowels
with high and low tones - high tone is usually indicated in writing by an acute
accent (á í é ó ú). Also, Yukatek has contrastive laryngealization on vowels, as
in the plural suffix -oo'b.
Like almost all Mayan languages, Yucatec Maya is verb initial. Word order varies
between VOS and VSO with VOS being the most common. Many sentences may appear to
be SVO, but this is a derived order due to a topic-comment system similar to
that of Japanese. One of the most widely studied areas of Yukatek is the
semantics of time in the language. Yukatek, like many other languages of the
world (Kalaallisut, arguably Mandarin Chinese, Guaraní inter alia) lacks the
grammatical category of tense. Temporal information is encoded by a combination
of aspect, inherent lexical aspect (aktionsart), and pragmatically governed
conversational inferences. Yukatek is further unique in the world's languages
for lacking temporal connective such as 'before' and 'after'.
Another unique aspect of the language is the core argument marking strategy
which is a 'fluid S system' in the typology of Dixon (1994) where intransitive
subjects are encoded like agents or patients based upon a number of semantics
properties as well as the perfectivity of the event.
Orthography
The Maya were literate in pre-Columbian times, when the language was written
using Maya hieroglyphs. The language itself can be traced back to proto-Yucatecan,
the ancestor of modern Yucatec Maya, Itza, Lacandon and Mopan. Even further
back, the language is ultimately related to all other Maya languages through
proto-Mayan itself.
Yucatec Maya is now written in the Latin script. This was introduced during the
Spanish Conquest of Yucatán which began in the early 16th century, and the
now-antiquated conventions of Spanish orthography of that period ("Colonial
orthography") were adapted to transcribe Yucatec Maya. This included the use of
x for the postalveolar fricative sound (often spelled as sh in English), a sound
that in Spanish has since turned into a velar fricative nowadays spelled j,
except in a few geographic names such as "México".
In colonial times a "reversed c" (?) was often used for the [?’] sound now more
usually written dz (and latterly as tz' in the revised ALMG orthography).
Common Phrases in Maya
B'ix a b'el? (pronounced "B'ix a b'eh?" in parts of western Yucatan and northern
Campeche)
How are you? (literally "How is your road?")
Ma'alob', kux tech?
Good, and you? (literally "not bad, as for you?")
B'ey xan ten.
Same with me (literally "thus also to me")
Tux ka b'in?
Where are you going?
Tim b'in xíimb'al.
I am going for a walk.
B'ix a k'àab'a'?
What is your name? (Literally "how are you named?")
Jorge in k'àab'a'.
My name is Jorge (Literally "Jorge my name")
Hach ki'imak in wóol in wilikech
Pleased to meet you (Literally "very happy my heart I see you")
Bax ka wa'alik?
What's up? (Literally, "what are you saying (it)" or "what do you say?")
Mix b'á'al. (Pronounced "Mix b'á'ah" in parts of western Yucatan and northern
Campeche)
Nothing.
B'ix a wilik?
How does it look? (Literally "how you see (it)?")
Hach Ma'alob'
Very good.
Kó'ox!
Let's go! (For two people - you and I)
Kó'one'ex!
Let's go! (For a group of people)
Tak sáamal (the word "tak" is often lost in many areas of the northern lowlands,
and it is replaced with "hasta sáamah" in western Yucatan and northern Campeche)
Until Tomorrow. (Meaning "See you tomorrow")
Hach dyos b'o'otik.
Thank you very much. (Literally "very much God pays (it)")
Mix b'á'al. (Pronounced "Mix b'á'ah" in parts of western Yucatan and northern
Campeche)
It's nothing (don't mention it - you're welcome) (literally, "Nothing").
English word derived from Maya
According to Breaking the Maya Code: Revised Edition by Michael D. Coe, 1999,
the English word shark comes directly from the Maya xoc for "fish". The OED
print edition describes the origin of shark as "uncertain", noting it "seems to
have been introduced by the sailors of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Hawkin's
expedition, who brought home a specimen which was exhibited in London in 1569".
Use in popular culture
The 2006 film Apocalypto, directed by Mel Gibson, was filmed entirely in Yucatec
Maya.
| |
|
