Talk:Classic Maya language

Untitled
Interesting article, thanks for contributing it, anon! I encourage you to stick around, choose a user name, and log in here.

A couple of details I was wondering about: I had heard from linguists that Classic Maya of the central lowlands was most closely ancestral to Chol, already distinct from the Yucatec of the earlier inscriptions. Here the ancestors of Chol and Yucatec Maya are talked about as dialects of the same language, but their offshoots as seperate languages. Is there any consensus as to when/if they became seperate languges or how this should be classified?

I'm also not sure that the link to "Egyptian language" is the best way to describe Maya writing. In any case, Wikipedia could use more and better info on Pre-Columbain Maya writing (and something on the colonial era literary tradition as well, but I think that's further down the road). Cheers, -- Infrogmation 23:37, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Revisions
I will be making some major edits to this article in the coming days but I wanted to post here first asking for comment and help from those who have more knowledge and sources in this area. My understanding is that the central claim of the text that Classic Mayan stands at or near the base of the Mayan language family tree is simply not true. The main branches had already diverged by the Classic Period and dialectical differences can be ditected in some inscriptions. The most recent scholarship concerns the theory by Stuart, Houston, etc. that there was a single prestige language in use throughout the Maya area bleonging to the Cholan branch of Mayan and in particular very close to attested Chorti. I'll dig up what cites I can but their orginal paper especially would be much appreciated. Eluchil404 14:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the original paper is Houston, Robertson and Stuart (2000). "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions", Current Anthropology 41(3):321-356, followed up by (2001) "More on the Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions", Current Anthropology 42'(4):558-559. But these don't seem to be freely accessible. I think Søren Wichmann has also responded/commented on this idea, and he has most of his papers online here; haven't checked whether any of those available are relevant.--cjllw | TALK  07:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * That is indeed the paper. The evidence presented focuses mainly on morphology. Houston, Robertson, Law, and myself have written a few follow-up papers providing further support for the hypothesis. That said, many buy into the argument, but there are those who still stubbornly believe that the Cholan languages had not yet split-up (e.g. David Mora-Marin). Even fewer believe there is significant elements of Yucatec. Even under the proto-Cholan hypothesis (Mora-Marin), the language of the script is far removed from Proto-Mayan and Yukatekan was certainly a different language by that time. I believe there is a family tree in an article on the Maya language family here on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.187.80.2 (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

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