| Also Known As: Yucateco,Peninsular Maya,Maya, Yucatán
Description:
Yucatec Maya ("Maaya T'aan" 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 - 1.2 million speakers.
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'aan "speech" vs. táan "forehead"). 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..... full article at Wikipedia |
