Huave languageHuave (also spelled Wabe) is a language isolate spoken by the indigenous Huave people on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The language is spoken in four villages on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southeast of the state, by around 20,000 people (see table below). The Huave people of San Mateo del Mar, who call themselves Ikoots, meaning "us," refer to their language as ombeayiiüts, meaning "our language". In San Francisco del Mar, the corresponding terms are Kunajts ("us") and umbeyajts ("our language").
Otomi languageOtomi (ˌoʊtəˈmiː; Otomí otoˈmi) is an Oto-Pamean language spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. Otomi consists of several closely related languages, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The word Hñähñu hɲɑ̃hɲṹ has been proposed as an endonym, but since it represents the usage of a single dialect, it has not gained wide currency.
Mesoamerican literatureThe traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a number of Mesoamerican writing systems of varying degrees of complexity and completeness. Mesoamerican writing systems arose independently from other writing systems in the world, and their development represents one of the very few such origins in the history of writing.
Cascajal BlockThe Cascajal Block is a tablet-sized writing slab in Mexico, made of serpentinite, which has been dated to the early first millennium BCE, incised with hitherto unknown characters that may represent the earliest writing system in the New World. Archaeologist Stephen D. Houston of Brown University said that this discovery helps to "link the Olmec civilization to literacy, document an unsuspected writing system, and reveal a new complexity to [the Olmec] civilization.
HuehuetenangoHuehuetenango (weweteˈnaŋɡo) is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American Highway before the Mexican border at La Mesilla. Its primary export is coffee. Huehuetenango (originally called Xinabajul in the Mam language) was already a Maya settlement before the Spanish conquest of the fortified city of Zaculeu, which was the Pre-Columbian capital of the Mam kingdom situated just a few kilometers from Xinabahul.
SoconuscoSoconusco is a region in the southwest corner of the state of Chiapas in Mexico along its border with Guatemala. It is a narrow strip of land wedged between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is the southernmost part of the Chiapas coast extending south from the Ulapa River to the Suchiate River, distinguished by its history and economic production. Abundant moisture and volcanic soil has always made it rich for agriculture, contributing to the flowering of the Mokaya and Olmec cultures, which were based on Theobroma cacao and rubber of Castilla elastica.
TōllānTollan, Tolan, or Tolán is a name used for the capital cities of two empires of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica; first for Teotihuacan, and later for the Toltec capital, Tula, both in Mexico. The name has also been applied to the Postclassic Mexican settlement Cholula. The name Tōllān means "Among the reeds" in the Nahuatl language, with the figurative sense of a densely populated "place where people are thick as reeds". Names with the same meaning were used in Maya and other native Mexican languages.
Olmec hieroglyphsOlmec hieroglyphs (alternatively Olmec glyphs, Olmec writing, or Olmec script) designate a possible system of writing or proto-writing developed within the Olmec culture. The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing during the formative period (1500 BCE to 400 BCE) in the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. The subsequent Epi-Olmec culture (300 BCE to 250 CE), was a successor culture to the Olmec and featured a full-fledged writing system, the Isthmian (or Epi-Olmec) script.
ChicleChicle (ˈtʃɪkəl) is a natural gum traditionally used in making chewing gum and other products. It is collected from several species of Mesoamerican trees in the genus Manilkara, including M. zapota, M. chicle, M. staminodella, and M. bidentata. The tapping of the gum is similar to the tapping of latex from the rubber tree: zig-zag gashes are made in the tree trunk and the dripping gum is collected in small bags. It is then boiled until it reaches the correct thickness. Locals who collect chicle are called chicleros.
Akatek languageInfobox language | name = Akateko | altname = Acateco | states = GuatemalaMexico | region = HuehuetenangoChiapas | ethnicity = 66,000 Akateko in Guatemala (2019 census) | speakers = in Guatemala | date = 2011 – 2019 census | ref = e24 | speakers2 = in Mexico (2020 census) | familycolor = American | fam1 = Mayan | fam2 = Qʼanjobalan–Chujean | fam3 = Qʼanjobalan | fam4 = Kanjobal–Jacaltec | minority = | iso3 = knj | glotto = west2635 | glottorefname = Akateko | notice = IPA | nativename = Kuti, q'anub'al | ag
