ABSTRACT

The Mayan Languages presents a comprehensive survey of the language family associated with the Classic Mayan civilization (AD 200–900), a family whose individual languages are still spoken today by at least six million indigenous Maya in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras.

This unique resource is an ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Mayan languages and linguistics. Written by a team of experts in the field, The Mayan Languages presents in-depth accounts of the linguistic features that characterize the thirty-one languages of the family, their historical evolution, and the social context in which they are spoken.

The Mayan Languages:

  • provides detailed grammatical sketches of approximately a third of the Mayan languages, representing most of the branches of the family;
  • includes a section on the historical development of the family, as well as an entirely new sketch of the grammar of "Classic Maya" as represented in the hieroglyphic script;
  • provides detailed state-of-the-art discussions of the principal advances in grammatical analysis of Mayan languages;
  • includes ample discussion of the use of the languages in social, conversational, and poetic contexts.

Consisting of topical chapters on the history, sociolinguistics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse structure, and acquisition of the Mayan languages, this book will be a resource for researchers and other readers with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic anthropology, language acquisition, and linguistic typology.

part 1|156 pages

Language Development, History, and Change

chapter 3|19 pages

Mayan History and Comparison

chapter 5|16 pages

Language Contacts with(in) Mayan

chapter 6|45 pages

Classic Mayan

An overview of language in ancient hieroglyphic script

part 2|152 pages

Grammar

chapter 8|25 pages

Morphology

chapter 9|33 pages

Alignment Patterns

chapter 10|34 pages

Complement Clauses

chapter 11|32 pages

Information Structure in Mayan *

part 3|52 pages

Semantics

chapter 12|21 pages

Organization of Space

chapter 14|15 pages

Pluractionality in Mayan

part 4|81 pages

Language in Context

chapter 15|22 pages

The Labyrinth of Diversity

The sociolinguistics of Mayan languages

chapter 17|25 pages

Poetics

part 5|301 pages

Grammar Sketches

chapter 18|39 pages

K’iche’

chapter 19|33 pages

Mam *

chapter 20|37 pages

Q’anjob’al

chapter 21|40 pages

Tojolabal

chapter 22|38 pages

Tseltal and Tsotsil

chapter 23|37 pages

Ch’ol *