The Mayan Languages

by Judith Aissen (Editor), Nora C. England (Editor), Roberto Zavala Maldonado (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367869137
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/12/2019
Series:	Routledge Language Family Series
Pages:	790
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Judith Aissen is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Nora C. England is Dallas TACA Centennial Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also Director of the Center for Indigenous Languages of Latin America at the University of Texas at Austin.

Roberto Zavala Maldonado is Researcher and Professor at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Mexico. He was also Joint-Director of the Project for the Documentation of Languages of Meso-America.

Table of Contents

List of abbreviations vii

List of contributors xi

1 Introduction Judith Aissen Nora C. England Roberto Zavala Maldonado I

Part 1 Language Development, History, and Change

2 Mayan language acquisition Clifton Pye Barbara Pfeiler Pedro Mateo Pedro 19

3 Mayan history and comparison Lyle Campbell 43

4 Aspects of the lexicon of proto-Mayan and its earliest descendants Terrence Kaufman 62

5 Language contacts with(in) Mayan Danny Law 112

6 Classic Mayan: An overview of language in ancient hieroglyphic script Danny Law David Stuart 128

Part 2 Grammar

7 Phonology and phonetics Nora C. England Brandon O. Baird 175

8 Morphology Gilles Polian 201

9 Alignment patterns Roberto Zavala Maldonado 226

10 Complement clauses Judith Aissen 259

11 Information structure in Mayan Judith Aissen 293

Part 3 Semantics

12 Organization of space Jürgen Bohnemeyer 327

13 Focus, interrogation, and indefinites Scott AnderBois 348

14 Pluractionality in Mayan Robert Henderson 362

Part 4 Language in Context

15 The labyrinth of diversity: The sociolinguistics of Mayan languages Sergio Romero 379

16 Mayan conversation and interaction John B. Haviland 401

17 Poetics Rusty Barrett 433

Part 5 Grammar Sketches

18 K'iche' Telma A. Can Pixabaj 461

19 Mam Nora C. England 500

20 Q'anjob'al Eladio Mateo Toledo 533

21 Tojolabal Alejandro Curiel Ramírez del Prado 570

22 Tseltal and Tsotsil Gilles Polian 610

23 Ch'ol Jessica Coon 648

24 Comparative Maya (Yucatec, Lacandon, Itzaj, and Mopan Maya) Charles Andrew Hofling 685

Index 761