The Mayan languages or Maya language form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight more.

The Mayan language family is one of the best documented and most studied in the Americas. Modern Mayan languages descend from Proto-Mayan, a language thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed using the comparative method. 

Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational nouns instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. They also possess grammatical and typological features that set them apart from other languages of Mesoamerica, such as the use of ergativity in the grammatical treatment of verbs and their subjects and objects, specific inflectional categories on verbs, and a special word class of "positionals" which is typical of all Mayan languages.

During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history, some Mayan languages were written in the Maya hieroglyphic script. Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization (c. 250–900 CE). The surviving corpus of over 10,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices, combined with the rich postcolonial literature in Mayan languages written in the Latin alphabet, provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history unparalleled

History

Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-language called Proto-Mayan or, in K'iche' Maya, Nab'ee Maya' Tzij ("the old Maya Language"). The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Q'anjobalan is spoken today. The first division occurred around 2200 BCE when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper, after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast. Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Ch'olan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula. Speakers of the western branch moved south into the areas now inhabited by Mamean and Quichean people. When speakers of proto-Tzeltalan later separated from the Ch'olan group and moved south into the Chiapas highlands, they came into contact with speakers of Mixe-Zoquean languages.

In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanwords from Mixe-Zoquean languages seem to have entered the proto-Mayan language. This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe-Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec culture. In the case of the Xinca and Lenca languages, on the other hand, Mayan languages are more often the source than the receiver of loanwords. This is seen by Mayan language specialists like Lyle Campbell to suggest a period of intense contact between Maya and the Lencan and Xinca people, possibly during the Classic period (250–900 CE).

Approximate migration routes and dates for various Mayan language families. The region shown as Proto-Mayan is now occupied by speakers of the Q'anjobalan branch (light blue in other figures).
Approximate migration routes and dates for various Mayan language families. The region shown as Proto-Mayan is now occupied by speakers of the Q'anjobalan branch (light blue in other figures).
The split between Proto-Yucatecan (in the north, that is, the Yucatán Peninsula) and Proto-Ch'olan (in the south, that is, the Chiapas highlands and Petén Basin) had already occurred by the Classic period, when most extant Maya inscriptions were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at the Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as "Classic Maya language."

During the Classic period all the major branches diversified into separate languages. But the glyphic texts only record two varieties of Mayan — a Ch'olan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands, and a Yucatecan variety found in the texts from Yucatán Peninsula.
It was recently suggested that the specific variety of Ch'olan found in the glyphic texts is best understood as "Classic Ch'olti'an", the ancestor language of modern Ch'orti' and Ch'olti'. It is thought to have originated in western and south-central Petén Basin; it would have been used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. The reason why only two linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialects throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite. Nevertheless, common Mayan people must already have spoken a number of distinct languages by the Classic period.

During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous languages were eclipsed by Spanish which became the new prestige language. Mayan languages were no exception, and their use in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature, came to an end. Yet the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, and perhaps for this reason many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. Nonetheless, the Maya area is now dominated by Spanish. While a number of Mayan languages are moribund or are considered endangered, others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society.

As Maya archaeology advanced during the 20th century and nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies spread, the Mayan-speaking peoples began to develop a shared ethnic identity as Maya, the heirs of the great Maya civilization.

The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships, is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Mayans identify themselves first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "K'iche'"; but they also recognize a shared Mayan kinship.

Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. Paradoxically perhaps, this pride in unity has led to an insistence on the separateness of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. However, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in the past, making a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages.

In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages) which was founded by Mayan organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords it has been gaining growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples themselves.

Source: Wikipedia
Edition: Roberto Rivas Bastidas