Mayan

Introduction

This language family as a certain mechanics; it's present in parts of Central America and Mexico.  This language family has 32 languages in it.  They came from Proto-Mayan.  Mayans created their own written language.  Mayan people were pretty sweet and still are!!!!!

Mechanics

This language family has 3 word orders: VOS, VSO, and SVO.  Most Mayan languages have 5 vowels and lack the sounds of b, d, z, and g.  It also lacks articles as well.  There statives in this language family; they adjectives and verbs.  Mayan languages are full of particles.  This language family has its own vocabulary, but has incorporated words from other languages such as Spanish.       

Proto-Mayan

It was spoken ova 5,000 years ago!!!!!  It is the mother of both Classical Mayan and modern day Mayan languages.  As Maya people moved around their languages changed.  That's how you get the 30 different Mayan languages.  I assume this language family originated in Guatemala.    

Languages

There are 4 major subdivisions in the Mayan language family.  They are as follows: Huastecan, Yucatecan, Western, Eastern.  Languages with in the Huastecan branch are spoken in Mexico by 110,000 people.  One of the languages in this branch became extinct in the 1980's.  Languages with the Yucatecan branch are the most popular in Mexico.  They are spoken by about a million people.  The Eastern branch is spoken in Guatemala by ova  a million people.  Languages of the Western branch is spoken in Central America.  One of languages went extinct in El Salvador and another one is on it way out in Honduras.  A lot of Mayans got killed in Guatemala during its civil war.  There would be more speakers of Q'anjob'al if there wasn't a civil war.  

Coverage

Mayan languages are spoken in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras.  @ least 21 Mayan languages are spoken in Guatemala.  There maybe 8 Mayan languages spoken in Mexico.  3 of them are spoken in Belize.  Ch'orti' is spoken in Honduras and Q'eqchi' is spoken in El Salvador.      

Script

This form of writing is known as Maya glyphs.  It was created ova 2,000 years ago.  It was used till the Spanish conquest 500 years.  It looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but they're unrelated.  Scribes used the script to write codices.  The glyphs represented sounds and/or words.  Popol Vuh is a Mayan book of history and mythology; it escaped the Spanish destruction of Mayan books.  It was written by the K'iche people.      

Then and Now

The Mayan civilization was amazing!!!!!  They were good @ creating art, buildings, pyramids, and calendars.  They grew beans, squash, corn, and chill peppers about 4,000 years ago.  They created cities ova 2,000 years ago.  They learned the long count calendar from the Olmecs.  They lived in city-states, they neva unified politically.  Southern Mayans left their cities because of warfare, over population, and drought.  Northern Mayans fared betta.  There was a Mayan city named Kaminaljuyu in Guatemala.  People lived there for 3,700 years!!!!!!!!  There was upper class, middle class, and lower class in Mayan society.  The soldiers went to war to plunder.  There weapons they used was a spear, blowgun, and bow arrow.  

They were great sculptors, they made many statues.  Some of their statues were of deities and rulers.  The artists made stelas, lintels, tablets, columns, altars, thrones, wood cravings, masks, etc.  Some of their art was influenced by the Olmecs.  

There was a lot of trade in Mayan cities.  They traded as far as New Mexico and Columbia.  Cotton, obsidian, salt, slaves, gold discs, turquoise, cacao, ceramics, copper bells, and axes were some of things that was traded.  Some of the trade was done on the ocean.  

The Mayans were great city planners.  Cities were made out of limestone, brick and adobe.  "The great cities of the Maya civilization were composed of pyramid temples, palaces, ballcourts, sacbeob (causeways), patios and plazas."  Some cities had defensive walls.                

They tracked celestial objects and created their own form of divination.  This tracking was done by the priesthood and they used it predict the future.  They associated Venus with destruction and created a calendar based on that planet.  Eclipses were seen as bringer of doom.        

Their religion was like other Mesoamerican people.  They believed their ancestors looked out 4 them in the spirit world.  The priests ingested entheogens so they could interact with spirits.  They believed their were 9 levels in the lower world and 13 levels in the upper world.  Humans were sacrificed to their deities.   

A lot of Mayan people live in southern Mexico.  Most Mayans that live there don't even speak a Mayan language!!  There was a Mayan nation in what today is Mexico that lasted for 54 years.  There are many Mayan politicians in Yucatan Peninsula.   There are 3 different Mayan tribes in Belize.  There's @ least 14 different Mayan tribes in Guatemala.   

Conclusion

The Mayan language family is diverse and it's ancient.  It comes from Guatemala and it's spoken in 4 other countries.  There are 32 languages in 4 subdivisions in that family.  They had their own scripts 4 writing.  The Mayan civilization had farming, buildings, pyramids, trading, religion, art, astronomy, military, and much more.  Today there are 6 million Mayans living in 5 countries.        

References

wikipedia.org

google.com

Mechanics

Online Mayan School