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The Royal Spanish Academy is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with national language academies in 22 other Hispanophone nations through the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language. The RAE's emblem is a fiery crucible, and its motto is Limpia, fija y da esplendor.
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million Maya people, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory.
Mam is a Mayan language spoken by about half a million Mam people in the Guatemalan departments of Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, and Retalhuleu, and the Mexican states of Campeche and Chiapas. Thousands more make up a Mam diaspora throughout the United States and Mexico, with notable populations living in Oakland, California and Washington, D.C.
The Maya peoples are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras. "Maya" is a modern collective term for the peoples of the region, however, the term was not historically used by the indigenous populations themselves. There was no common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations, societies and ethnic groups because they each had their own particular traditions, cultures and historical identity.
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The Jakaltek (Jacaltec) language, also known as Jakalteko (Jacalteco) or Poptiʼ, is a Mayan language of Guatemala spoken by 90,000 Jakaltek people in the department of Huehuetenango, and some 500 the adjoining part of Chiapas in southern Mexico. The name Poptiʼ for the language is used by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala and the Guatemalan Congress.
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Ajaw or Ahau ('Lord') is a pre-Columbian Maya political title attested from epigraphic inscriptions. It is also the name of the 20th day of the tzolkʼin, the Maya divinatory calendar, on which a ruler's kʼatun-ending rituals would fall.
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The Qʼeqchiʼ language, also spelled Kekchi, Kʼekchiʼ, or Kekchí, is one of the Mayan languages, spoken within Qʼeqchiʼ communities in Guatemala and Belize.
Chuj[tʃuχ] is a Mayan language spoken by around 40,000 members of the Chuj people in Guatemala and around 3,000 members in Mexico. Chuj is a member of the Qʼanjobʼalan branch along with the languages of Tojolabʼal, Qʼanjobʼal, Akateko, Poptiʼ, and Mochoʼ which, together with the Chʼolan branch, Chuj forms the Western branch of the Mayan family. The Chujean branch emerged approximately 2,000 years ago. In Guatemala, Chuj speakers mainly reside in the municipalities of San Mateo Ixtatán, San Sebastián Coatán and Nentón in the Huehuetenango Department. Some communities in Barillas and Ixcán also speak Chuj. The two main dialects of Chuj are the San Mateo Ixtatán dialect and the San Sebastián Coatán dialect.
Mopan is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. It is spoken by the Mopan people who live in the Petén Department of Guatemala and in the Maya Mountains region of Belize. There are between three and four thousand Mopan speakers in Guatemala and six to eight thousand in Belize.
The Mam are an indigenous people in the western highlands of Guatemala and in south-western Mexico who speak the Mam language.
The Uspanteko is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to Kʼicheʼ. It is spoken in the Uspantán and Playa Grande Ixcán municipios, in the Department El Quiché. It is also one of only three Mayan languages to have developed contrastive tone. It distinguishes between vowels with high tone and vowels with low tone.
Poqomam is a Mayan language, closely related to Poqomchiʼ. It is spoken by 50,000 or so people in several small pockets in Guatemala, the largest of which is in Jalapa department.
Guatemalan Sign Language or "Lengua de Señas de Guatemala" is the proposed national deaf sign language of Guatemala, formerly equated by most users and most literature equates with the sign language known by the acronymic abbreviations LENSEGUA, Lensegua, and LenSeGua. Recent legal initiatives have sought to define the term more inclusively, so that it encompasses all the distinctive sign languages and sign systems native to the country.
Kʼicheʼ, or Quiché, is a Mayan language of Guatemala, spoken by the Kʼicheʼ people of the central highlands. With over a million speakers, Kʼicheʼ is the second most widely-spoken language in the country, after Spanish. It is also the most widely-spoken indigenous American language in Mesoamerica.
References
- French, Brigittine. 2004. The politics and semiotics of sounds – Mayan linguistics and nation-building in Guatemala. Collegium Antropologicum 28, Supplement 1:249–255.
- Fischer, E. F., & Brown, R. M. (Eds.). (2010). Maya cultural activism in Guatemala. University of Texas Press.
- Rostica, J. C. (2007). Las organizaciones mayas de Guatemala y el diálogo intercultural. Política y cultura, (27), 75–97.
- England, N. C. (2003). Mayan language revival and revitalization politics: Linguists and linguistic ideologies. American anthropologist, 105(4), 733–743.
- The original version of this article was translated, with adaptations, from the corresponding article on the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
