YUCATEC LANGUAGE

also called Maya, American Indian language of the Mayan family, spoken in the Yucatn Peninsula, including not only part of Mexico but also Belize and northern Guatemala. In its classical (i.e., 16th-century) form Yucatec was the language of Yucatn, and it survives in its modern form with little dialectal variation and only minor changes from the classical form. Written materials that may be in Yucatec (but are probably in a Cholan language) include three hieroglyphic codices surviving from the period before the Spanish conquest (see Mayan hieroglyphic writing), as well as numerous stone monument inscriptions. These, however, have yet to be deciphered. The literature that constitutes the body of readable written material in Yucatec was written down in the late 16th and early 17th centuries in an orthography adapted from that of Spanish. Major works are the Book of Chilam Balam and the Book of the Songs of Dzitbalch. The phonology of Yucatec is characterized by a series of glottalized consonants as well as voiceless consonants such as p, t, k. Voiced stops such as b, d, g are rare, occurring only in words borrowed from Spanish. Another characteristic of Yucatec is the use of tones to distinguish between otherwise identical words. In grammar and syntax, Yucatec uses prefixes, suffixes, and infixes to mark grammatical categories such as plural number, possession, and verb tense. Small words called particles function like English prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, and interjections.