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El maya yucateco o maya t’aan es una lengua mayense hablada en los estados mexicanos de Campeche, Yucatan y Quintana Roo, en los distritos belicenos de Corozal y Orange Walk, y en el Peten guatemalteco. Con mas de 800 000 hablantes es la segunda lengua nativa mas hablada en Mexico. La particularidad del yucateco, ademas de su vitalidad contemporanea, es su importante corpus documental. Los mayas peninsulares empezaron a producir textos escritos con el alfabeto latino desde los primeros anos d...

Like many indigenous populations worldwide, Yucatec Maya communities are rapidly undergoing change as they become more connected with urban centers and access to formal education, wage labour, and market goods became more accessible to their inhabitants. However, little is known about how these changes affect children’s language input. Here, we provide the first systematic assessment of the quantity, type, source, and language of the input received by 29 Yucatec Maya infants born six years apart in communities where increased contact with urban centres has resulted in a greater exposure to the dominant surrounding language, Spanish. Results show that infants from the second cohort received less directed input than infants in the first and, when directly addressed, most of their input was in Spanish. To investigate the mechanisms driving the observed patterns, we interviewed 126 adults from the communities. Against common assumptions, we showed that reductions in Mayan input did not simply result from speakers devaluing the Maya language. Instead, changes in input could be attributed to changes in childcare practices, as well as caregiver ethnotheories regarding the relative acquisition difficulty of each of the languages. Our study highlights the need for understanding the drivers of individual behaviour in the face of socio-demographic and economic changes as it is key for determining the fate of linguistic diversity.

Yucatec Maya world vision reflects an ecological dimension present in words and concepts that guide their management decisions in their traditional food production systems. Professionals working in different activities related to sustainable community development, require good understanding of agroecological concepts in Maya, especially in their interaction/conversations with local Maya people. This paper explores conspicuous ecological concepts in Maya language used in traditional systems such as the milpa and contrasts them with concepts used in academic papers related to natural resources management. The ecological/agroecological concepts analyzed are ecosystem, dynamic equilibrium, niche, competition, carrying capacity, sustainability/resilience and participatory action research. &nbsp, La cosmovisión de los Mayas Yucatecos refleja una dimensión ecológica tal y como se muestra a través de palabras y conceptos que guían el manejo de sus sistemas de producción de alimentos. Las actividades de diferentes profesionistas relacionadas con el desarrollo comunitario sostenible, en poblaciones maya-hablantes de la península de Yucatán, requieren del uso de términos ecológicos en su interacción con los pobladores. El presente trabajo hace una exploración de los términos ecológicos más conspicuos en lengua Maya, usados en contextos prácticos por maya-hablantes en sistemas tradicionales como la milpa, y los compara con el uso de esos conceptos en publicaciones académicas relacionadas con el manejo de recursos naturales. Los conceptos ecológicos/agroecológicos analizados son: ecosistema, equilibrio dinámico, nicho, competencia, capacidad de carga, sostenibilidad/resiliencia e investigación acción participativa.

This essay reviews the following works: The Ch’ol Maya of Chiapas . Edited by Karen Bassie-Sweet, with Robert M. Laughlin, Nicholas A. Hopkins, and Andres Brizuela Casimir. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 251. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780806147024. Wellness beyond Words: Maya Compositions of Speech and Silence in Medical Care . By T. S. Harvey. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 256. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826352736. Maya Market Women: Power and Tradition in San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala . By S. Ashley Kistler. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 160. $44.68 paperback. ISBN: 9780252079887. Southern Eastern Huastec Narratives: A Trilingual Edition . Translated and edited by Ana Kondic. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 197. $24.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780806151809. Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds: Religion and Modernity in a Transnational K’iche’ Community . By C. James MacKenzie. Boulder: University Press of Colorado; Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 2016. Pp. ix + 368. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781607325567. Songs That Make the Road Dance: Courtship and Fertility Music of the Tz’utujil Maya . By Linda O’Brien-Rothe. Forewords by Allen J. Christenson and Sandra L. Orellana. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 244. $72.93 paperback. ISBN: 9781477305386. Language and Ethnicity among the K’ichee’ Maya . By Sergio Romero. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 123. $50.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781607813972.

Indigenous subjects in Latin America have historically not been recognised as part of the state. When indigenous women are elected as mayors they are positioned between two places. First, they are the state as they have been democratically elected. Second, they are categorised as female indigenous bodies. This interchange of power relations influences female mayors’ decision-making. It will be argued that while some female mayors transform gender and racial norms in their municipalities, others reaffirm them. Whilst some mayors reproduce hierarchical racial-ethnic relations, others have found ways of confronting and utilising existing multicultural policies to create new relations between state and constituents such as incorporating the Maya language and customs in official municipal acts. These actions defy common multicultural practices of toleration and aim to counter the racism constituents have experienced in the past.

La autorregulación es una capacidad distintiva del ser humano. Su influencia en el desempeño del aprendizaje académico es determinante. Los alumnos que autorregulan su aprendizaje monitorizan su comportamiento en relación con sus objetivos y reflexionan sobre los avances que se van produciendo. Se orientan a un aprendizaje transformador, no puramente reproductor. Esta investigación hace una exploración del proceso de aprendizaje autorregulado en estudiantes universitarios mayahablantes. La muestra se conformó por 40 alumnos de origen maya, de los cuales el 57.5% corresponde al sexo femenino y el 42.5% al masculino. El 30% de la muestra es mayahablante y el 67.5% habla castellano. Los sujetos de la muestra de la investigación cursaban el 6o. semestre de universidad, inscritos en seis diferentes programas educativos de la Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo. Todos eran alumnos que estudiaban Lengua Maya Nivel IV. Para medir el nivel de autorregulación del aprendizaje se aplicó la escala de evaluación interactiva del proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje (EIPE-6). Los resultados indican que en el proceso de autorregulación en el aula, al relacionar las variables idioma y planificación, la correlación es significativa en el nivel 0.01 (r = -0.579) y en la autorregulación en general la correlación es significativa en el nivel 0.01 (r = -0.436). El 40% de los alumnos planifica, el 25% ejecuta lo planificado y el 45% autorreflexiona. El idioma no influye en el proceso del aprendizaje autorregulado. La autorregulación es una variable determinante para el aprendizaje transformador.

The aim of this article is to outline the new paths of the Maya language in the Yucatan Peninsula. The author identifies the linguistic and extra linguistic factors that are causing a decline in the domains of use of Maya, despite it being a very widely spoken language in Mexico. This article also reviews different stages in the history of the Maya language, in order to show how it came to be a language in frequent contact with other languages. Changes within the language and in the linguistic awareness of its speakers have led to new efforts in its revitalization and in the creation of new functional domains which may help it gain back status, it may also lead to the creation of new spaces for it to be used along with other world languages. In this process, Maya speakers, NGOs, associations, and institutes of Maya language, along with experts, researchers, and government sectors, have come together to create new paths which aim at promoting and strengthening the Maya language. However, there exist external factors which serve as obstacles to the creation of clear, pertinent, and feasible linguistic policies.

En esta investigación analizamos el sistema pronominal átono (tercera persona) de hablantes de español en contacto con maya yucateco a partir de un corpus compuesto por entrevistas y una tarea lingüística realizadas a 27 participantes, clasificados por su grado de mono/bilingüismo y nivel de instrucción. Mediante un análisis multivariado, se determinaron relaciones de dependencia entre las variables, con cruces entre variables internas y externas. Mostramos que este sistema evidencia una tendencia similar a la que constatamos en otras variedades de español en situación de contacto lingüístico intenso: las formas pronominales átonas de acusativo tienden a no especificar los rasgos de género y número. Argumentamos que al proceso de gramaticalización de las formas pronominales como concordancias de objeto que se desarrolla desde el español antiguo, se unen las características de la lengua de contacto, el maya, que actúa como un acelerador del cambio y que posibilita la reorganización y recategorización del sistema pronominal átono de tercera persona, prácticamente completada en el grupo de los bilingües consecutivos de español como L2. Y a partir de este grupo el cambio se va expandiendo al resto de los grupos, precisamente en las entidades más prototípicas de objeto (definidas, inanimadas y continuas) en contextos de alta accesibilidad, donde el referente está más activo en la mente del hablante y del oyente, In this paper we examine the atonic pronominal system (third person) of Spanish speakers in contact with Yucatec Maya. The corpus included interviews and a language task from 27 participants, who were classified according to their degree of mono/bilinguism and their education level. By means of a multivariate analysis, dependence relations between the variables, with crossings between internal and external ones, were determined. We demonstrate that this system evidences a tendency similar to the one found in other varieties of Spanish in intense language contact: the atonic pronominal forms of accusative tend not to specify the features of gender and number. We argue that along with the process of grammaticalization of the pronominal forms as object agreement, the Maya language acts as an accelerator of the change and enables the reorganization and recategorization of the atonic pronominal system of third person. This change has been completed in the consecutive bilinguals of Spanish as L2; and from this group, the change is spreading to the others displayed precisely in the most prototypical object entities (defined, inanimate and continuous), and in highly accessible contexts, where the referent is more active in the speaker and the interlocutor’s mind

Maya Blue is an unusual blue pigment used on pottery, sculpture, and murals from the Preclassic to the Colonial period. Until the late 1960s, its composition was unknown, but chemists working in Spain, Belgium, Mexico, and the United States identified Maya Blue as a combination of indigo and the unusual clay mineral palygorskite (also called attapulgite). A source of palygorskite in the Maya area was unknown for years; then ethnoarchaeological research in the mid-1960s demonstrated that the contemporary Maya recognized the unique physical properties of palygorskite and used it as an additive for pottery temper and for curing certain types of illnesses. Because of its importance in Maya Blue, pre-Hispanic sources of the mineral were then suggested based on ethnoarchaeological data. One of these sources was the cenote in the town of Sacalum, Yucatan. This paper briefly reviews the history of the Maya Blue research from an anthropological perspective and presents evidence of a second possible pre-Hispanic mining site for palygorskite at Yo' Sah Kab near Ticul, Yucatan. Archaeological and technological approaches have demonstrated the use, distribution, composition, and characteristics of Maya Blue, but ethnoarchaeology has related it to Maya language and culture and to possible pre-Hispanic sources of one of its constituents, palygorskite.

[spa] El asumir la diversidad lingüística y cultural de México —mediante la instauración de la Ley de Derechos Lingüísticos (2003)—, como una característica invaluable del país condujo hacia la búsqueda de estrategias que desarrollen y fortalezcan cada una de las lenguas y las culturas que conforman el territorio mexicano. Una de las estrategias implementadas para tal fin ha sido la creación de universidades interculturales, entre los objetivos de dichas universidades está el de fortalecer las lenguas y culturas indígenas. Sin embargo, y aun con las leyes a favor y los espacios construidos para tal fin, dicha tarea no resulta fácil ni mucho menos inmediata, es un proceso largo y a veces complicado. Este trabajo desarrollado en la Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, una de las 10 universidades Interculturales de México, tiene como propósito contribuir a fortalecer las estrategias de revitalización lingüística del maya. Con dicho propósito el objetivo de la investigación fue conocer las razones de la escasa comunicación en lengua maya de los estudiantes en la mencionada universidad. Es una investigación-acción que opta como metodología el análisis del análisis del discurso. Mediante la palabra de los participantes se develan las actitudes e ideologías de docentes y alumnos. Las voces dejan al descubierto las razones que dificultan la comunicación oral en lengua maya de los estudiantes. Las actitudes e ideologías de los participantes reflejan tanto un pasado de represión lingüística y cultural como un presente lleno de carencias y falto de motivación y de herramientas que procuren una revitalización lingüística y cultural real. Entre los problemas destacan la falta de motivación de los alumnos, las actitudes negativas por el uso del maya tanto de docentes como de alumnos y la poca competencia comunicativa en maya de parte de los bilingües receptivos y en castellano de parte de los mayahablantes. El análisis del discurso también permitió conocer estrategias para una revitalización lingüística del maya, entre ellas la preparación y actualización docente y la motivación de los estudiantes para usar el maya., [eng] Assuming that linguistic and cultural diversity of Mexico - through the establishment of the Law of Linguistic Rights (2003) - is an invaluable feature of the country led to the search for strategies that develop and strengthen each of the languages and cultures that make up the Mexican territory. One of the strategies implemented for this purpose was the creation of Intercultural Universities. Among the objectives of these universities is to harness indigenous languages and cultures. However, even with the laws in favour and purpose-built space and venues, the task is not easy, and much less immediate. It is a long and sometimes difficult process. The present work was carried out at the Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, one of the 10 Intercultural Universities running at present in Mexico. This institution aims to contribute to strengthening linguistic revitalization strategies of Maya. Fuelled by this purpose, the aim of this research was to determine the reasons for poor communication in the Mayan language among students in that University. It is an action-research work carried out according to the discourse analysis methodology. The attitudes and ideologies of both instructors and students are unveiled through the analysis of their words. Their voice exposes the reasons that hinder oral communication in Maya among students. Those participants’ attitudes and ideologies reflect a past of linguistic and cultural repression as well as a present lacking both motivation and the tools which would effectively promote linguistic and cultural revitalization. The main problems include lack of students’ motivation, negative attitudes towards the use of Maya both by teachers and students, and little communicative competence in Maya among passive bilinguals, on one hand, and lack of competence in Spanish among Maya speakers, on the other. Discourse analysis also provided insights for language revitalization strategies of Maya, including the preparation and updating of teachers and students' motivation to use the Mayan language.

Hacienda San Juan Bautista Tabi is located in the Mexican state of Yucatan, approximately 65 km south of the capital Merida, and 23 and 17 km southeast of the towns of Ticul and Oxkutzcab, respectively (see Fig. 1.1). The hacienda is located in a fertile valley between the Sierrita de Ticul or Puuc Hills to the northeast and the Sierra de Bolonchen or Witz hills to the southwest. In this fertile region the archetypal pre-Hispanic sites of the Puuc architectural style, including Labna, Sayil, and Kabah, flourished.

RESUMEN: Se han desarrollado diversos estudios acerca de los idiomas Mayas de Guatemala, pero éste se hace desde la lingüística textual, con el fin de presentar el uso didáctico del idioma maya Q'eqchi', en el proyecto denominado Educación Basada en la Cultura Maya Q'eqchi', con el enfoque de la Pedagogía del Texto, que desarrolla la Asociación Q'eqchi' Xch'ool Ixim, en cuatro escuelas del área rural del municipio de Cobán A.V., Guatemala. Se hace el análisis del dominio escritural de textos del género explicativo, desde los mecanismos de textualizaciòn como un aporte a la didáctica de la lengua, ejemplificando especialmente el dispositivo pedagógico denominado Secuencia Didácticas. Se recalca la importancia de abordar la enseñanza-aprendizaje de la lengua como creación permanente de interacción discursiva, plasmada en enunciados sociales.

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An earlier article in this journal suggested that Tayasal, the island capital of the late Postclassic and historic period Itza Maya, was located at Topoxt6 on Lake Yaxh6 in the Department of Peten, Guatemala. Study of ethnohistorical sources for the Pet6n Itza and their neighbors leads us to conclude, however, that Tayasal was in fact in Lake Pet6n Itza, the location long favored by earlier writers. These sources are reviewed here, and Tayasal is positively located on the island of Flores; tentative locations for other contemporary settlements in the central lakes region of Pet6n are offered. The current status of Postclassic period central Peten archaeological research is reviewed in light of the known ethnohistory of the region. The need for continuing interaction between archaeological and ethnohistorical research is stressed. These Itza Indians are of Yucatecan descent, originally from this land of Yucatan; thus, they speak the same Maya language as the Yucatecans. It is said that they departed from the territory and jurisdiction that today is under the seat of Valladolid and from the pueblo of Chichen Itzf, where today there survive some of the large buildings which are seen in this land and which were so admired when these kingdoms were discovered .... They also departed with others from neighboring towns. Padre Fuensalida says that 100 years before the Spaniards came to these kingdoms they fled from Chichen Itza during the period which they call eighth, in their language Uahac Ahau; and they populated those lands where they live today. Their flight to an island and such hidden regions was known from the prophecies which they had ... [stating] that there had come from eastern regions people of a nation which had dominated this land. Today the prophecies (written with their ancient characters) are kept by those called priests in a book like a history which they call analte . . . [L6pez de Cogolludo 1971:II, 256-257, Bk. 9, ch. 14].

Some years ago, on making a comparison between the Mexican and Maya systems of numeration, I learned from the celebrated Friar Beltran de la Rosa's work on the Maya language, first printed in 1746, that, like the Mexicans, the Mayas employed a number of affixes which, when added to their numerals, furnished an indication as to the kind of object that was enumerated. Just as the Mexicans, for instance, add the affix tetl to each numeral when they are counting chickens, eggs, cocoa, tamales, loaves of bread, melons, etc., so the Mayas affixed the syllable te when they counted not only eggs, cocoa, and calabashes, but also years, months, and days. Now, while Molina, in his Diccionario de la lengua Castellana y Mexicana, records the uses of only six affixes or methods of counting besides what he terms the "general count" (in which the numerals were employed without affixes), the Maya dictionary records the use of not fewer than seventy-five affixes, of which I shall cite the following examples: The affix ac was employed in counting canoes, boats, houses, lots, churches, seats, altars, canes, pits, troughs, villages, and fields. The affix mol was used in counting things which are united, gathered, or congregated together. When birds, fishes, and animals were counted the affix pok was employed. On the other hand, tul was added in counting men and -women. The affix pec denoted that the things counted were flat and round, like tortillas, maizecakes, etc. Bak was used for counts of four hundred. The affix oc signified objects which were measured by handfuls ; ual for leaves of tobacco, plantain trees, etc.; piz for pieces of money, also years and days; much for heaps of stones, earth, grain, etc.; hat, for pairs of things; ahau for twenty-day periods; auat for distances; cuc for measures; cuch for loads; chuy for bags, bunches of fruit, strings

On the eve of the Spanish conquest aboriginal cacao cultivation extended from the two coasts of central Mexico to Costa Rica. Although the districts of greatest production were located within the Maya language areas of southern Mexico and Pacific Guatemala-El Salvador, a large and increasing market for cacao lay in the Nahua language areas of highland Mexico. To this area important amounts of cacao moved in trade from the southern zone of production. Distributions of Indian cacao cultivation have been plotted from published and unpublished primary sources. An unpublished tribute assessment list (Tasacion de Tributos 1548–51) provides the most detailed distributional information available for the significant cacao zones of Guatemala and El Salvador.