Mayan Languages
| Maya civilization |
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| See also |
| Maya |
| Mayan languages |
| Mayan sites |
Mayan languages (code ISO 639 -2: myn) are a family of languages Native American spoken by 5 million people . Most speakers are descendants of the Mayan civilization , it is not uncommon, however, that in some areas, the descendants of Spaniards have a working knowledge of the native language History Based on studies of historical linguistics , Mayan languages are derived from a common language, called Proto-Mayan , the glottochronology old believes about 4000 years. The reconstruction of his vocabulary on the environment did not adequately specify the location of speakers , except that it points to the Mesoamerica. It is reasonable to assume that the proto-Mayan language was the ancestors of Classic Maya , whose archeology indicates that they were in the south-east of the Maya area, near the coast Pacific . The proto-maya split into five language groups between 1600 and 700 BCE. The first branches are to separate the Huaxteca and Yucatan in the north. Then follow the Tzeltal-chol groups, Kanjobal-chuj, group Quiche-mam. The separation is reflected in language areas during the Classic Period Maya : writing ideographic found in the inscriptions (monuments, works of art) has to find grammatical and phonetic changes in three areas: the northern Yucatec, Chol Western Western (ancestor of chol and Chontal) and chol East (ancestor Chorti and cholt) east, with a possible fourth zone Tzeltal (ancestor of Tzeltal and Tzotzil) in the far west. It seems that the separation between East and West Branches of the chol group occurred during the Classic Period, around 650 . With increasing phonetic differences during this period, the signs of nature in phonetic hieroglyphics grew steadily. Moreover, it was more important in the region most distant, linguistically, the Classic Maya, north of the peninsula. At consonant , the Mayan languages have the particular - to an Indo-European - from owning non-pulmonary consonants , namely ejective : these are realized by closing the glottis during the articulation. The system of vowels has a typical layout of a large number of languages, namely five vowels that optimize the coverage pattern of aperture-articulation point: / c / open / e / and / o / semi-open, and / o / and / u / closed. There are generally opposed to quantity at the phonological level: / a / and / a: /, / e / and / e: /, etc.. In some languages such as Yucatec Maya , there are more vowels glottalized long, / a? a /, / e? e /, / e: / opposed to the long / a: /, / e: / etc.. and short / a /, / e /, etc.. These vowels are produced with a glottal stop in the middle of their articulation. The radical type consonant-vowel-consonant. Mayan languages are usually polysynthetic , ie qu'interviennent a large number of lexemes per word. Grammatical point of view, we note the presence of many classifiers , particles falling between the numeral and the word quantified, these classifiers specify the type of object quantified (geometry, lexical field, etc.). Mayan languages are to some degree a character ergative , that is to say when the direct object of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb is treated the same way, in opposition to the subject of a transitive verb. Mayan languages tend to have the order verb-object-subject in a proposed transitive. Before the conquest, the writing system hieroglyphic was such ideo-phonographic. Mayan languages are written using the Latin alphabet. The transcription system is inspired by the Spanish with additional diacritics for recording sounds lacking in Castilian. There are a total of 71 languages, grouped into six broad categories: Tzeltal, Chol, Huasteca, Kanjobal-jacaltque, mam-Quiche, Yucatec Mother tongue
Pre-Columbian Period
Colonial Era
Post-independence
Phonology
Morphology and grammar
Geographic distribution
Writing
Pre-conquest
Post-conquest
List of Mayan languages
Mayan languages are listed below with their codes ISO 639 -3 and the number of speakers by country (estimate from the Ethnologue Group Tzeltal-chol Group Huaxtec
Group Kanjobal-chuj
Group Quiche-mam
Group Yucatec
Sign languages (classification uncertain)
Structures important in Mayan languages
In Latin script
In hieroglyphic writing
References
Bibliography
Related articles
External Links
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