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Concept
Yucatec Maya language
Summary
Yucatec Maya (ˈjuːkətɛk_ˈmaɪə; referred to by its speakers simply as Maya or as màaya t’àan [màːjaʔˈtʼàːn]) is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic community of Yucatec Maya speakers in San Francisco, though most Mayan Americans are speakers of other Mayan languages from Guatemala and Chiapas.
According to the Hocabá dictionary, compiled by American anthropologist Victoria Bricker, there is a variant name mayab tʼàan [majabˈtʼàːn], literally "flat speech"). A popular, yet false, alternative etymology of Mayab is "ma ya'ab" or "not many," "the few" which derives from New Age spiritualist interpretations of the Maya. The use of "Mayab" as the name of the language seems to be unique to the town of Hocabá, as indicated by the Hocabá dictionary and is not employed elsewhere in the region or in Mexico, by either Spanish or Maya speakers. As used in Hocabá, "Mayab" is not the recognized name of the language, but instead a "nickname" derived from a common nickname for the region, the Mayab ("Mayab, the land of pheasant and deer"), the use of which emerged in the colonial period. This use may also derive from the title of a self-published book by a Yucatec scholar, Santiago Pacheco Cruz (1969). The meaning and origins of "Maya" as the name of the language (versus Mayab) and as the ethnic identity (ethnonym) are complex questions (see etymology and social history of the word as ethnic identity and name of the language in Restall (2004) and Restall and Gabbert (2017).
Linguists have added Yucatec to the name in order to clearly distinguish it from the rest of Mayan languages (such as Kʼicheʼ and Itzaʼ). Thus the use of the term Yucatec Maya to refer to the language is scholarly or scientific nomenclature. Native speakers do not qualify the language as Yucatec, calling it "Maaya," "maayaʼ tʼàan," or "maasewal t'aan" (commoner language) in their language and simply (el) maya when speaking Spanish.
Official source
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