Who Are the Maya?
Peoples, Cultures, Civilization, Languages

Maya Historical Timeline

Maya World, Maya Homelands

Meanings of the Word Mayan

Maya Identity is Maya

Maya Peoples

Maya Civilization

Maya Migration

Maya and Mayan are not Equivalent nor Substitutable Words

Historical Timeline of Maya Peoples and Civilization

The civilization most popularly understood as "the Maya" refers to the period of historical development of the societies, cultures, and kingdoms scholars have labelled Classic Maya (250-900 CE). Maya civilization however has four thousand years of historical depth. This includes at least as far back as 2000 BCE when discernible Maya cultural traits can be identified in the archaeological record. As well Maya civilization in the narrow sense of politically autonomous societies and polities ends with the Spanish colonization of the region. However, Maya peoples, culture, languages, communities, achievements continue throughout to the present. Maya civilization continues today but not in the form of politically independent and sovereign Maya societies.

Archaic period		8000–2000 BCE
Preclassic	Formative Maya	2000–250 BCE
	Early Preclassic	2000–1000 BCE
	Middle Preclassic	1000–300 BCE
	Late Preclassic	300 BCE–250 CE
Classic Period		250–950
	Early Classic	250–600
	Late Classic	600–825
	Terminal Classic	825–950
Postclassic		950-1520
	Early Postclassic	950-1250
	Late Postclassic	1250-1520
Early Modern	Colonial Period	1520–1820
Modern Period	Nation-State Era	1820-present

Credit: Adapted from The Maya: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2020) by Matthew Restall and Amara Solari.

Maya World, Maya Homelands

The Maya World is a term coined by anthropologists and historians to refer to the ancestral homelands of Maya civilization. This homeland is further divided into three macroregions, called the Northern Lowlands, the Central Lowlands, and the Highlands. Each of these is associated with different Maya language groups, cultural diversity, sociopolitical development, histories, autonomous kingdoms--- and thus the boundary of these regions is only an analytical imposition by anthropologists (see red line on map below). In the early 20th century Maya scholars presupposed the existence of a singular Maya empire throughout the Maya World. However, further research especially based on new decipherment and interpretations of Maya hieroglyphic writing led to an understanding that there was no singular empire. Rather, many kingdoms, based in a major city, had imperial designs to establish political dominion over neighboring cities. These city-states, however, were not able to transform local domination for extraction of tribute into long-term political empire.

Whereas the geographic differentiation of the Central Lowlands from the Highlands to the south is quite easily identified, the boundary between the Northern and Central Lowlands is rather blurry and variable. This region was not easily colonized by the Spaniards and remained outside of colonial rule until the 18th century. Even afterwards this region between regions is imprecise and not well known. Separation can be roughly drawn by populations of speakers of Mayan languages other than the one Mayan langauge known as Maya. This language has been given the scientific classification label "Yucatec Maya" by linguists. As can be seen in the maps below, the Highlands was a region of the greatest diversity of Maya peoples and cultures, where as the Northern Lowlands there is only one Mayan language spoken, Maya.

The Northern Lowlands more or less corresponds to the geographic region of the Yucatan Peninsula. However, there is some debate about how to define the geographic limits or extension of the Peninsula. Typically peninsulas are defined by being surrounds by bodies of water on three sides and having an isthmus or narrow extension of land connecting the peninsula to the main mass of land or mainland. While some define the Yucatan Peninsula by the geological landmass that is meets the highlands to the south, others might define the Peninsula more by contemporary geopolitical criteria such that the Mexican border with Guatemala and with Belize would mark the social pragmatic limits. Others would draw the southern boundary of the Peninsula based on the locations of rivers and lakes that form a curving line of demarcation.

Credits: Imaged modified from original with lines to provide rough demarcation of the three regions of the Maya World: Northern Maya Lowlands, Central Maya Lowlands, and the Maya Highlands. From Commons Wikimedia. The author Simon Burchell based on image previously published. See details

Mayan Language Family and Mayan Languages

There are 32 Mayan languages that comprise the Mayan language family (see chart below). There are over 6 million speakers of Mayan languages. The image below can be enlarged to see the regional home of Mayan speakers based on the language they speak.

The majority of Mayan speakers are Guatelamalans by nationality. There are an approximate 21 Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala.

There are approximately seven Mayan languages that are native to Chiapas, Mexico (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch'ol Tojolobal, Lacandon, Chontal Chuj, Kanjobal, Acatec).

There is only one Mayan language native to the Mexican territory of the Yucatan Peninsula. This geographic langmass is home to the states of Yucatan, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. This one Mayan language native to Peninsula is properly called Maya. The speakers have an ethnic identification of being Maya. It is not correct to use the scientific classification "Yucatec Maya," "Yucatec Mayan," or "Yucatec" as either the name of the language or as the ethnic name of these Maya..

Credit: Image, modified, from Law, Danny. 2014. Language contact, inherited similarity and social difference: The story of linguistic interaction in the Maya lowlands. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://www.ericadell.com/languageinfo/mayan . Wikimedia Commons License (Here).

Based on glottochronology, historical linguistics reconstructed the proto-Mayan language from which these languages have developed as distinct, as seen on the family tree chart. Mayan languages shows the general territory of the speakers of specific Mayan languages. Notice that the illustrations use the scientific nomenclature of linguistic classification --- "Yucatec Maya" or "Yucatec (Maya") --- instead of using the proper name of the Maya language as determined by the native indigenous Maya speakers of this language. We strongly advocate for respect in the use of the proper names of self-identification of indigenous peoples, including the Maya peoples residing in the Yucatan Peninsula. (For details see "Maya or Mayan"; Castañeda 2024 (chapter 3) "Usos y Abusos".)

Meanings of the word "Mayan"

"Mayan" is a word invented by linguists to study the relationships between languages that share a close history This word is a scientific classification invented with four specific, meanings all of which reference language. The four correct meanings of Mayan are:

1. Mayan language family: the analytically constructed family of 32 Mayan languages.
2. a Mayan language: one of the 32 Mayan languages that have been identified by linguists as sharing an array of grammatical, lexical and phonological attributes and commonalities.
3. the Proto-Mayan language that has been reconstructed based on the shared commonalities, especially via glottochronology.
4. A Mayan refers to a person who is a native, first language speaker of one of the 32 Mayan languages in any historical time frame within the approximately 4000 years of Maya civilization

Mayan or mayense in Spanish is similar to the word Indo-European as this word is also a term of linguistic classification. Mayan and Indo-European are words that carry no sociological content: They do not imply, or denote any specific nationality, ethnicity, race, culture, religion, political affiliation or belonging and not any specific historical time period.

Mayan is a linguistic identification. It expresses the idea that a person speaks a Mayan language. However this identifcation of a person as a Mayan speaker or of whole communities and populations as Mayan speakers does not specify:

1. which specific Mayan language of the thirty-two possible that are spoken in an environmentally diverse region that spans across at least four contemporary nations (Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador);
2. which Maya culture, linguistic community, or society within this extensive region of Maya
peoples;
3. which specific region, homeland, place of belonging, or location within the encompassing Maya "world";
4. which Maya kingdom or polity (in period 1800 BCE to mid-1540s) or independent polity (1823 to 1901);
5. what is the nationality of the Mayan speaker if the Mayan speaker lives post 1823 after emergence of nation-states from Spanish colonialim;
6. what ethnicity or ethnic identity of the Mayan speaker based on whether the Mayan belongs to an ethnic group in which nation (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, USA, Canada);
7. whether the Mayan self-identifies as indigenous or does not identify as indigenous;
8. which religion the Mayan practice or believes in given that Maya today might not only be Catholic, Muslim, Mormon, Pentecostal, Jehovah's, costumbrista traditionalists, new age spiritual traditionalists, but in the past the Maya religion had significant variations based on the kingdom and political society to which the Mayan belonged;
9. in which historical milieu or time period within the roughly 4000 year span of Maya history did or does the Mayan speaker live.

Mayan is therefore not only not a term of ... Mayan is therefore not only not a term of self-identity since it does not identify any specific sociocultural and historical information about what the person identifies with or as. Thus Mayan should not be used as an ascribed ethnicity (or label of ethnic/sociocultural identity). Just as it would be baffling to read a book about Roman civilization and history in which every instance of the word "Roman" were changed to "Indo-European." Mayan is always used correctly if it is being used to refer to speakers as if this were an ethnic identity or ethnicity. Mayan is not a cultural, ethnic, religious, social, or political identity.

Maya Identity is... Maya, is Plural

Mayan is therefore not a term of self-identity.
Mayan is not accurately or correctly used as an ascribed ethnicity or term of ethnic/sociocultural identity.

Mayan speakers identity with the specific Mayan language that they speak as a first language. The populations that speak one Mayan language can be understood in different ways depending on what sociocultural aspects or attributes of these population is the topic of conversation: They are at once an ethnic group, a indigenous people, a cultural community, and linguistic communities depending on In Guatemala, the Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) refers to these Maya language communities"

Speakers of English, French, Romanian, Yiddish, Persian, Pashto, Hittite, Slavic, or Irish do not typically identity as "Indo-European" in terms of any sociological, cultural, ethnic, or political terms. Self-identification as Indo-European may however denote not a sociological identity but a racial identity based on scientifically debunked theories of biological race: Even in this ideology, the term is not "Indo-European" but "Aryan" or "Caucasian." Similarly speakers of Mayan do not identify in sociological terms or purposes as Mayan. The only exception to this is in anglophone contexts and English speakers insist on used "Mayan" as an ethnic identity despite its inaccuracies.

Maya peoples, like all peoples, primarily identify in terms of their sex/gender, family, religion, community of belonging or hometown. The sociological identities that differentiate being Maya from other groups of people are primarily and historically based on five criteria:

        1. lineage and or kinship groups.

        2. community homeland, i.e., specific community of birth, belonging, and residence.

        3. regional homeland, i.e., region populated by or historically associated with a specific Mayan language.

        4. specific Mayan language

        5. sociopolitical belonging:
        ⇒before Spanish colonialism, this is association and belonging to the polity or kingdom to which one is subject;
        ⇒during Spanish colonialism, this references the governmental-administrative units of colonial rule;
        ⇒in the post-colonial era of modernity, this references nationality or belonging to a nation-states.

These criteria are really not very different most peoples throughout the world: Kinship, community, language, region, and belonging to an overarching polity (kingdom or nation-state). People who outsiders call Maya did not necessarily identify themselves as such or even know what this word meant or that it was an identity worth associating themselves. Many scholarly books and articles deal with the sociopolitical and historical processes of "becoming Maya."

Identity as Maya is quite variable: power, meaning, and significance for different Maya peoples based on the quite different sociopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts in which Maya live. Among Guatemalans, the Civil War became hugely important motivation for identification as Maya. This initially emerged in the 1980s as a cultural mobilization labelled the Pan-Maya movement. In the Yucatan Peninsula, identification as Maya was further propelled by the massive development of the regional tourism industry created on the sale and consumption of "Maya" -- Maya pyramids, civilization, Maya beaches, Maya weddings, Maya spiritualism, etc. Different cultiral-political initiatives from UNESCO have prioritized the development of indigenous rights and thus also indigenous identity, including Maya identity.

In these new contexts, peoples who are the historical descendents and heirs of Maya civilization are increasingly identitying as Maya in addition to their other kinship, community, regional, and linguistic identifications.

Maya Peoples: Indigeneity, Ethnicity, Linguistic Communities

Maya peoples are an indigenous people. However they are difficult to categorize in terms of sociological classification. Some Maya reject the identification as indigenous.

Maya Migration and Migrant Communities

Today Maya peoples and communities live in their ancestral homelands that span the contemporary nation-states of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Maya migration from Guatemala in reponse to the Civil War has created Maya communities in exile in the USA and Canada. Maya migration from the Yucatan Peninsula began in the 2000s. This was primarily from the state of Yucatan specifically the Puuc region, and has led to the development of a vibrant community Maya and Yucatecos in San Francisco and Bay Area. Significant numbers of Maya from throughout the region have moved to Europe for education and careers. Among the multitude of Mexicans from throughout the nation that have migrated to the Quintana Roo coast to seek improved lives in the tourism economy are Maya from Chiapas. In particular one neighborhood of Playa del Carmen, just a handful of streets north and west of the original bus station is known for as the Chiapas barrio.

Institutional Partners of OSEA

Latin American & Iberian Institute at University of New Mexico (LAIL–UNM)has partnered with OSEA to help provide summer FLAS funding for eligble learnings of Maya who seek to attend the OSEA Maya Immersion Program.
Visit for detailed information on application dates, award, and eligibility.

Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo (UIMQRoo)
(UIMQRoo) (https://www.uimqroo.edu.mx/), located in José María Morelos, Quintana Roo (QRoo), is OSEA's parnter for intercultural exchange of students and faculty. OSEA course transcripting is authorized by UIMQRoo.