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OSEA Intensive Maya Language Learning Program is based on LANGUAGE IMMERSION in Maya speaking communities & families.(Download Brochure Here)
Read Student Evaluations and Comments from Previous Field Seasons
Comment on the Correct Name of the Maya: Maya, Mayan, Yucatec Maya, Yukatek Mayan?
Summer: Six and half Week program
Dates: Sunday May 23 to Thursday July 8, 2010. See the OSEA summer calendar
Start: Start date is day of ARRIVAL on-site in Pisté in time for 2pm orientation meeting
End: End date is the earliest date of Departure for successful completion of program.
Location: Pisté and Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, México, and surrounding Maya Indian communities
Credits: 6 credit hours, at undergraduate or graduate level, Levels 1, 2, 3, 4 available
See course descriptions here
Courses: Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior Levels (1-4) are available
Cost: $4000 FLAS Based Tuition, for FLAS Awardees with Institutional Payment
Non-FLAS Eligible Applicants
are eligible for the Cocom Scholarship ($1000 Award) Room & Board: Lodging in Posada: $950 Shared Double, $1200 Single
Limited Number of Homestay Options available on competitive basis, $900
All meals in Pisté while on location during program are included.
Meals arranged with Maya families and/or local family-run restaurants.
FLAS /US Dept. Education:
The OSEA Maya Language Immersion Program meets the pedagogical criteria and standards for teaching Less Commonly Taught Languages. Students who are awarded a Summer FLAS Fellowhip can use their award to learn Maya in the OSEA Intensive Language Program. For more information about FLAS Fellowships please click here and visit your Latin American studies center at your own home institution.
Eligibility:
Program is open to: undergraduate majors and graduate students in any field of study
Non-students who have completed a BA, MA, or other higher degree are also accepted
Requirements:
GPA of 2.7 for coursework taken to date
Completion of Freshman year of college, university, or equivalent institution
Minimum 1 year of college level Spanish or demonstrated fluency/proficiency
No prior coursework or knowledge in Maya language is necessary
Field Trips: Educational excursions to ruins such as Chichén Itzá, Ek’ Balam, Yaxuna, cenotes such as Dzitnup, Yaxche, other ecological sites, and to nearby rancherias/jungle villages for cultural exchange and language learning are included in the program costs. Specific locations and activities determined at program start and can change due to unforeseen circumstances.
Break: 4 Day Program Break (paid out of pocket). Scheduled after the 3rd week of program
Weekends: The weekends are generally free except those occasions when a group field trip has been scheduled. The majority of these trips are on Saturday, however, the first Sunday is typically reserved for our visit to Chichén Itzá. The majority of field trips are scheduled during the first half of the program prior to the long four day break.
Out of Pocket: Long Program Break, personal items, consumibles, incidentals, laundry, non-program travel including lodging and meals, transportation to and from airport or other Mexican City to Pisté are all out of pocket expenses to be paid for directly by the participant. _________________________________________________________________________________
Home-Stays:
Home-stays with Maya families are carefully selected based on the Program Director’s 24 years of experience in the community of Pisté. OSEA has carefully developed a list of Maya families with home stays are possible. The overall size of the population of Pisté greatly restricts the number of families that can be potential host families. OSEA works with families whose household economy provides for a basic minimum of "creature-comfort" infrastructure -- which includes a variety of factors from bathrooms, electricity, space for study areas, and other criteria. OSEA also works with families of lower socioeconomic position who thereby lack many creature comforts to which US students are accustomed. Participants are required to purchase a hammock for sleeping in homestays; a special hammock shopping trip to a nearby town is organized during the first days of the program.
Lodging: OSEA partners with the Posada Olalde a Maya family-run posada that offers superior linguistic immersion and cross-cultural experience. Victor Olalde, owner and tour guide, has been a friend and collaborator of OSEA for over 20 years. He has significant cross cultural experience with OSEA students and tourists and he has often worked as the Student Liaison for OSEA. This experience helps make the Posada Olalde a particularly welcome place to stay; it provides both a home-stay experience with the privacy, creature comforts, and ease of a hotel. The Posada Olalde is ideally situated within 2 blocks of the OSEA Headquarters, one block from the main road, and 20 minutes walking distance from Chichén Itzá.
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Maya or Mayan Language? Yucatec Maya or 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 Mexicans) to distinguish it from the other 32 or so Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. Mayan is also used to identify the Mayan language family and Ur-language of this family of languages, which is called Proto-Mayan.
These other Mayan languages have a distinct proper name, such as in Chiapas, Mexico the languages spoken there are called Tzotzil, Tzeltal. In Guatemala, Mayan languages include Kekchi, Kiche, Kaqchiquel, Mam, and Jakaltec. The language called Maya is spoken primarily in the peninsula of Yucatán, México, in the states of Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. These are all MAYAN languages and to refer to them as Mayan is like calling the French language, "European" language. Similarly to call Maya "Mayan" is not a correct way to speak unless one is in fact refering to it belonging to the Mayan language family.
The Maya are called 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 the phrases Italian American, Texan American, or African American. Actually the term is equivalent to calling African Americans "Eubonic Americans" because these people speak "Black English." In either case it is not appropriate.
Further, "Yucatec Maya" is therefore not equivalent to phrases such as "Texan American" which identifies 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 sense. But, actually neither Texan American nor Yucatec Maya are very appropriate terms to use in this sense.
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.
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Enrollment
* Direct OSEA Enrollment allows students from any university with any residence status or nationality to enroll directly with OSEA. By arrangement with their institution's financial aid office, students can apply their award to the OSEA Program. All payment is made directly to OSEA by the student as per guidelines described in the application process. Upon completion of the program the student receives an OSEA transcript and an accredited transcript from the Facultad de Ciencias Antropologí Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY), OSEA's partner institution in México. The UADY is an institution on the list of accredited Mexican institutions accepted by US institutions. In order to facilate the transfer of credits, students receive two copies of each transcript in a sealed envelope. This envelope is then hand-delivered by the student to the registrar of their university in order to comply with your registrar rules for acceptance of transfer credits. It is recommended that every participant discuss the credit transfer process with their departmental advisor to secure pre-approval of transferability of course credits.
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