Maya or Mayans? Comment on Correct Terminology and Spellings

On the Misuse of the word "Mayan":
Maya Civilization, Maya Calendars, Maya Hieroglyphs ...

The word "Mayan" is often misused in English. It is not correctly used as an adjectival qualifier to name the cultural objects such as calendar, hieroglyphs, civilization, society, peoples, etc. that are associated with the Maya. The word Maya is a noun but also a qualifer that is used to name things that belong to the Maya. This phrase "the Maya" refers to the entire 4,000 years of precolumbian and contemporary civilization, peoples, cultures, and societies.

Maya is thus an adjectival qualifier. Thus, the correct usage is Maya Civilization, Maya calendar(s), Maya hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, Maya astronomy, Maya pyramids, Maya religion, Maya ritual, Maya warfare, etc. There is one well known exception discussed below. Mayan is always used to refer to the languages that Maya and Mayans speak or spoke.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Maya or Mayan Language?
"Mayan" has four primary, correct uses. First, it is the proper name of a language family -- the Mayan language family. Second, it is the technical name given by linguists to identity the 28-32 or languages that comprise this grouping of historically related languages. The third correct use of Mayan is to reference the proper name of the ur-language or origin/source language -- i.e., Proto-Mayan -- from which all those other languages are historically derived. Fourth, Mayan is used as an ascribed term of identitification by which outsiders indicate or reference speakers of any Mayan language. In these four instances, the word Mayan is an ascribed label, that is, it is a name given by linguists. These uses of Mayan are not terms of self-identity.

The use of these words suddenly gets complicated, however. There is one Mayan language whose proper name is "Maya"! The native speakers of Yucatec Maya call their language Maya. Maya is the correct proper name of the language that they speak.

Maya however is commonly called "Yucatec Maya" by linguists (especially US Americans but not very often by Mexicans) to distinguish it from the other 32 or so Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. These other Mayan languages each have their own distinct proper name. Just as languages that comprise the European language family are known by their proper names; for example, German, English, Dutch. Similarly, Tzotzil and Tzeltal are two Mayan languages spoken in highland Chiapas. in Guatemala, Mayan languages include Kekchi, Kiche, Kaqchiquel, Mam, and Jakaltec. The language called Maya is spoken primarily in Mexico, in the states of Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo; these three states comrise the geographic region known as the Yucatan Peninsula.

These MAYAN languages have their own individual name. Thus to refer to them as Mayan is like calling the French language, "European"; or refering to a German as a European speaker. Similarly to call Maya "Mayan" is not a correct way to speak unless one is in fact refering to the facts about it belonging to the Mayan language family.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Maya or Yucatec Maya?
The Maya are called Maya.
The speakers of the language called Maya are Maya. This is their proper name. To call them the "Yucatec Maya" is not appropriate despite more than a century of anthropological conventions of calling them by this name. To use "Yucatec Maya" to refer to the Maya is to use the scientific-technical name of the language spoken by that people as the name of the ethnic group itself. It is not a little denigrative to use this term as it effectively puts a people in a museum display case as a lab microscope.

"Yucatec Maya" is not equivalent to labels such as, Italian American, Texan American, or African American, which are terms of identity, even self-identity. To use Yucatec Maya in this way would be to ascribe this identity to the those people who call themselves simply Maya. Thus it actually would be equivalent to calling African Americans "Ebonic Americans" because such people speak a linguistic dialect of English ("Black English"). In both cases, this would be inappropriate.

Further, "Yucatec Maya" is therefore not equivalent to phrases such as "Texan American" if it is used identify a group of people by their shared geographic location in a place, in this case a place called Texas. It seems like it is the same kind of label if Texan American is used as a racial-ethnic label to refer to the ethnic group derived from the white-German descended immigrants that came from the Mid-East states like Ohio to colonize Texas in the mid-19th century; and therefore to use this label as a means to distinguish from the African Americans, Mexicans and Mexican Americans who are ALSO Texan Americans in the geographic, as well as social, political, and historical senses. But, actually neither Texan American nor Yucatec Maya are very appropriate terms to use in this sense.

What is the Plural of Maya? Maya!
Maya is singular and plural when refering to people or persons who are Maya speakers. In other words, do not add an "s" to make the plural: *"Mayas" is incorrect.

Thus: "Juan is Maya." And: "Those Maya over there are waiting in line to see Apocalypto."

Note, however, that "Mayan" which is an English word must have an "s" added to make the plural. Thus, Mayan speakers of languages such as K'iche, Mam, Tzotzil, etc. are Mayans. More on this below, however.

The use of Maya in singular and plural had been the established tradition in the US for most of the 20th century. However, some time in the 1980s or 90s, a new generation of US authors and editors at university presses began to use *"Mayas" to form the plural in written academic publications. This most likely resulted from proofreaders who adhered to English grammar rules without having any knowledge of the history of words and accepted useage. This may also be a borrowing of conventions that are found in Spanish and in Maya. In both of these languages, Maya can take the plural marker as a way to emphasize the plurality of the peoples who are identified as Maya: "los mayas" "le maya'o'obo".

_________________________________________________________________________________

Doña Pil is Maya vs Don Eraclio is a Maya
Both of these sentences are correct usage but they mean different things. Whats the difference? The first sentence references Doña Pil by a proper name of identity, "Maya." This sentence presupposes an unquestioned shared assumption of who and what are Maya; thereby implies that the identity is a (cultural or social) identification. To say, "Juan is Maya" is therefore to highlight that "Maya" is his identity (self-recognized or ascribed by outsiders).

The second case is a bit more complicated. Here, "Maya" is a qualifier that identifies a specific class or type of a broader category that remains unstated and implicit. This is most likely "Indian" (a racial-ethnic category) and less often "speaker" (a linguistic category). In other words, to say "Juan is a Maya" means either: "Juan is a Maya (Indian)" or "Juan is a Maya (speaker)."

_________________________________________________________________________________

What is the proper spelling, Yukatan or Yucatán? Yucatec or Yukatek?
In Mexico Yucatan is spelled Yucatan, Yucatec is spelled Yucatec. The "c" in these words is sometimes changed to "k" according to the orthography established by the ALMG, Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala.

In Guatemala the Mayan linguists of the ALMG created a standardized orthography by which to write the Mayan languages of Guatemala. The Maya did not participate in this process of creating a standard set of rules for writing Mayan languages and do not subscribe to its norms. Remember, the Maya afterall are not Guatemalans nor do they live in Guatemala! The Mayans who are from Chiapas and Belize also did not participate in establishing this convention. As one might imagine, the non-Guatemalan Mayans have not subscribed to this convention except as an individual choice. Nonetheless, there are US academics, especially among archaeologists, who have adopted the ALMG to write any and all words in any Mayan language, including Proto-Mayan and Maya (i.e., Yucatec Maya).

Although this seems like a politically correct and respectful adoption of a norm that was defined by an Indigenous group, others might view this as a continuation of neocolonial imposition. While it is respectful of the Guatemalan Mayans, it is overtly disrespectful of the Mayans in other nations who use their own orthographies. For example, to spell Yucatán "Yukatan" and Yucatec "Yukatek" is blatantly respectful of the established and accepted Mexican conventions of spelling the proper names of places and languages in Mexico.

Further, the Maya -- that is, to be redundant, Maya from Yucatán -- have not agreed upon a single standard orthography for writing Maya, including the orthography established by Mayans of Guatemala. There are instead about 2 or 3 different orthographies currently in use and another 4 or 5 that have been used within the last 20 years. While there is no single standard there are many agreed upon conventions. Not only are there differences in the orthographies used by Maya linguists today, but one is likely to find variation in the way a Maya linguist currently writes Maya today and how she or he wrote Maya 3 years ago.

_________________________________________________________________________________