Combined Dictionary-Concordance of the Yucatecan Mayan Language

There are three consonants which can cause difficulties because of their peculiarities: k, l and n.

k tends to vanish when it is the final consonant in a syllable. Examples:

ehochhen "darkness", from ekhochhen.

hozic "to take out", from hokzic.

kanab "sea", from kaknab.

olal "because of", from oklal.

l tends to vanish when it follows a vowel at the end of a word. Example:

bel "road"

dzoc u bel "finish his road", meaning "to get married".

The l is retained in speaking.

hol bel "gate, yard entrance". The l is frequently

not pronounced.

le bea "this road". The l is lost.

n often tends towards m in pronunciation. Example:

hun "one"

huntul "one animate object". The n is not changed.

humppel "one inanimate object". The n has been

changed to "m".

minaan "there isn't any", is often pronounced

minaam.

5. d, f, g, j, qu, r, and v are consonants generally not found in Mayan, and the use of one of these sounds generally indicates that the word is of foreign origin. Today r is an exception to this since it has become the custom to pronounce what used to be l in some words as r. Examples:

x-kuruch from x-kuluch (cockroach)

turix from tulix (dragon fly)

Accent and Tone

6. Accents are generally not marked in Mayan and that may in part be due to the fact that in words of more than one syllable the accent often falls evenly on each one of the syllables.

7. Tone plays an important part in spoken Mayan. It is our conclusion however that tone in Yucatec is akin to tone in English: that is, that tone gives the color necessary to distinguish between declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory utterances and/or tone gives emphasis to the important ideas being expressed. There are of course also examples of tone being used to differentiate between words of similar sounds as is true with Chinese, and this happens when a glottal-stopped vowel is glided over or when there is a tonal change in an elongated vowel as noted in Section 2. On the whole though we feel that tonal inflection is more a linguistic luxury which adds color to the language than it is a linguistic necessity.

An example of the use of tone in Mayan which is rather frivolous but does illustrate something of its nature is the use of tonal inflection in the number system. Today the numbers above "four" are derived from Spanish, or more precisely are Spanish numbers pronounced with Mayan tonal inflection. When a Mayan speaker is asked whether those numbers above "four" in the Mayan language are not in fact Spanish numbers the person will often answer that no, one can hear the difference between Mayan numbers and Spanish numbers. Well, this is certainly true; one can hear the difference; but the difference is due only to the tonal inflection given to the Mayan system and not due to any change in the consonants and vowels which make up these numbers.

CONTRACTIONS

8. Before continuing on with the various parts of speech it is well to point out that the Mayan language when spoken in the everyday setting is highly contracted. The main casualty of these contractions are vowels. Another casualty is the person trying to learn the language, because things start flying by so fast that it becomes close to impossible for a person who is in the process of learning the language to figure out what is being said. There are formal settings in which this propensity to contract is not so great, as for example at the tzol xicin (counseling) which is given to a newly married couple at their wedding party by the godparent of the occasion. In such instances there may be few or no contractions used in the speech. Also, fortunately for learners of the language, some people will take the time to use few contractions when they are addressing an outsider.

The amount to which the language will be contracted varies greatly with the individual speaker, although there are discernable regional differences as to the amount as well as the types of contractions which will be used. To start the reader off we will give a couple of examples of these contractions here:

tzimin horse (originally applied to "tapir")

The proper forms of plural of this noun, this noun as part of a demonstrative clause, and the plural of this noun as part of a demonstrative clause are:

tziminoob horses

le tzimino that horse

le tziminobo those horses

Almost no one would ever say these things this way however. Normally they would be said as follows:

tzimnoob horses

le tzimno that horse

le tzimnobo those horses

In all cases the second vowel i has been contracted out. Notice also that when the plural marker -oob has a final vowel attached to it that the reduplicated glottal-stopped oo becomes a simple o of regular length.

For the auxiliary verb tense indicator dzoc (immediate past perfect tense indicator) there are two things which can happen, although fortunately only one or the other can occur at any one instance. Either the oc can be contracted out and the dz combined with the following personal pronoun or the dz can be dropped. Dzoc, when no contractions are used, combined with the personal pronoun set gives the following:

dzoc in dzoc'

dzoc a dzoc a (verb)eex

dzoc u dzoc u (verb)oob

Example with the oc being contracted out:

dzin dzoc'

dza dza (verb)eex

dzu dzu (verb)oob

Example with the dz being contracted out:

oc in oc'

oc a oc a (verb)eex

oc u oc u (verb)oob

While none of these contractions in themselves seem to make the language incomprehensible, problems for the person who is learning the language do arise when contraction is followed by contraction. It might be noted that amongst the Maya themselves there is what seems to us to be a considerable amount of misunderstanding, more so to our mind than in the English or Spanish speaking worlds, often resulting in people becoming quite offended. Exactly what the sources of these misunderstandings are is not clear to us, but we wonder whether the highly contracted nature with which some people speak the Mayan language might not be a factor in these misunderstandings.

COMPLEX WORDS

9. The English language has gathered so many words from such a diverse collection of languages to express a wide range of concepts that it is no longer possible to trace the root meaning of many of these words unless we take the time to look up the roots from these various languages. A basic knowledge of German, Latin, and Greek provides a good start on understanding the makeup of the English language, but many other languages are involved as well. However, because we are so used to using complex words borrowed from these various languages it rarely occurs to us to look at the roots from which these complex words are built. Consider for example all those words which come from Latin which begin with the syllable "con-" / "com-" (with, together): combat, combine, combust, comfort, conceive, concern, concur, condition, etc., etc. These words are in fact built up from two or more individual words in Latin, but in English we would often not recognize the individual parts.

In the Mayan language this process of combining individual words to form larger concepts is still in force today. To give the reader an example of these complex words in Mayan we will look at one of the more common roots around which complex words are built. This word is ol, which means the metaphysical heart or spirit of a person or object. By combining this word with another the feelings of a person are described:

choco (hot) choco ol (hot tempered)

ci (good) ci ol (contented)

hak (surprise) hak ol (surprised)

ya (hurt) ya ol (sad)

These are only a few examples from a rather extensive list of the concepts using the word ol.

Unlike English in which the complex word tends to stay together as a unit, in Mayan parts of complex words, if we may call them that, will assume their proper positions in a phrase. Take for example for the concept ci ol (contented):

Ci a uoleex palaleex. "You are contented, children."

The word ci is separated from the word ol and various grammatical changes which will be talked about in this grammar have been applied to ol.

From this example it can be seen that the idea of creating complex concepts from simple words is also part of the Mayan language, but that unlike the pan-European counterparts which tend to stay together as units, complex concepts in Mayan work within the grammatical rules of the language, which means that the individual parts of these concepts will accept grammatical changes as individual words.

THE NOUN

10. The Mayan noun generally functions much like the English noun. It has though one difficult peculiarity for the English - speaking person and that is that the Mayan noun has no article per se. There is however a particle le which when combined with the positional markers -a, -o, and -e which are suffixed on to a noun or clause functions like an article in a sense, but the constructions le (noun/clause)a, le (noun/clause)o, and le (noun/clause)e are really demonstrative adjectives with the meaning "this (noun/clause)", "that (noun/clause)", and "that (noun/clause) over there". Thus for the noun pek (dog) there is the following:

le peka this dog

le peko that dog

le peke that dog over there (usually out of

sight)

11. The plural form of a noun is generally formed by adding the plural marker -oob as a suffix to the noun if the noun ends in a consonant or -ob if it ends in a vowel:

singular plural

pek (dog) pekoob (dogs)

tzimin (horse) tzimnoob (horses)

chhichh (bird) chhichhoob (birds)

be (road) beob (roads)

ku (nest) kuob (nests)

na (house) naob (houses)

Below are the singular and plural of these nouns with the demonstrative adjective. Notice that the glottal-stopped vowel of the plural marker -oob becomes a vowel of regular length when a positional marker is suffixed to the plural marker:

singular plural

le peka le pekoba

le tzimno le tzimnobo

le chhichhe le chhichhobe

le bea le beoba

le kuo le kuobo

le nae le naobe

There are other plural markers as well. A common plural marker in the colonial times and still used today is -i.

singular plural

ac (turtle) aci (turtles)

cay (fish) cayi (fishes)

nal (corn) nali (plural of corn)

Today cayoob is the standard way of saying the plural of cay, but nali is the standard way of saying the plural of nal. The plural of ac can be either aci or acoob.

There are also irregular plural markers:

singular plural

pal (child) palal (children)

palaloob (an alternative plural for

"children")

There are also words which have no plural markers:

ixim (corn as a grain, both singular and plural)

buul (bean, beans)

CASES OF NOUNS

12. The case of a noun may be determined both by its position in the phrase or sentence, and, in the case of the genitive and dative cases, by the preposition associated with the noun.

13. The genitive case uses the third person possessive adjectives u and u (noun)oob, which are the same as the third person Set A pronouns/possessive adjectives shown in Section 30, as the possessive markers. The possessive marker u is placed in front of the noun which is possessed which is then followed by the possessor/genitive case noun. Examples:

u ppoc Pedro Peter's hat

u yotoch le Juano that John's house

u pek le palalbo the children's dog

u pekoob a tata your father's dogs

14. The dative case is usually determined by the various adverbial prepositions which precede the noun. Some of the more common prepositions are the following:

ti to, at, from

desde (Spanish) from

yetel with

xma without

ich, ichil in, inside of

tancab outside (referring to a building)

tu tzel beside, next to, outside of

yok, yokol on, on top of

yanal, yanil under, beneath

actan, tu tan, tanil in front of

pachil, tu pach behind, in back of

tumen, tuolal, tiolal because, because of, by

utial for

tac even, including, until

Examples of usage of some of the above prepositions:

1) Le uaha utial Pedro. "These tortillas are for Peter."

Note A: It is not uncommon to refer to things which

are assumed to appear in plural form in the singular.

This sentence could also be said as follows:

Le uahoba utial Pedro.

in which the word uah (tortilla) is given in plural

form.

Note B: The verb yan (to be, to have) is used only in

terms of "to exist". The verb "to be" as used above in

English does not exist in Mayan.

2) Tin ualah ti in uidzine ca u dza tech uah.

"I told my younger brother/sister that he/she should give you tortillas."

Note C: Older siblings are referred to separately by

sex: zucun (brother), cic (sister). The younger ones

are referred to collectively: idzin (younger sibling).

Note D: The -e as a suffix on uidzine is used to

emphasize that the younger sibling was told. The -e may

in fact be derived from the -e of the demonstrative

adjectives. In any case, it is just as possible to say:

Tin ualah ti in uidzin ca u dza tech uah.

in which case idzin is not emphasized.

3) Tan u hokol ti in uotoch. "He/she/it is coming out from my house."

4) Ti in cahal yan chaan behlae. "At my town there is (a) fiesta today."

5) Hantabi in col tumen uacaxoob. "My garden was eaten by cows." Literally: "Was eaten my garden by cows."

6) Xma xanab ma tu patal in ximbal. "Without shoes it is not possible that I walk."

7) Tac in bin ta uetel ichil a col. "I want to go with you to your garden." (Literally: "Want I go you with into your garden.")

Note E: As was mentioned in Section 3 under the discussion of the consonants u and y, there are words which in their true form begin with a vowel, but generally take one of these two consonants in the normal course of being used. Thus etel - yetel (with, and) when used as the preposition "with" and follows one of the possessive adjectives is declined as follows:

tin uetel (with me) yetel toon (with us)

ta uetel (with you) ta ueteleex (with you pl.)

tu yetel (with him/her/it) tu yeteloob (with them)

GENDER

15. As the reader may have already noticed, there is a lack of explicit gender in the Mayan language, for example in the personal pronouns and possessive adjectives. This lack may reflect to some degree the more or less equal esteem which each gender holds the other in the Mayan society, a feature definitely lacking in the machismo of the Spanish speaking society found throughout Mexico. In any case, one could say the three genders, namely masculine, feminine, and neuter, exist in the Mayan language, but knowing the gender of a noun in fact is not an important grammatical consideration.

16. There are various ways which the gender of a noun is determined. There are nouns in Mayan which by their very nature determine the gender to which they belong:

xibpal boy

tancelem male teenager

xib, uinic, mac man

yum lord

colel, xunan woman, lady

nuc xib old man

icham husband

atan wife

tzo tom turkey

17. Gender, when not determined as above, can be determined by adding the prefix h- for "male" and x- for "female". There are also many nouns which are obviously female in nature which normally carry the x- (female) prefix. These two modern gender markers are derived from prefixes ah (male) and ix (female) which were in common use during the colonial times. Today on rare occasions, usually having to do with religious matters (either christian or Mayan), one hears these older prefixes. The prefix h-, depending on the noun it is prefixed to and on the speaker's predilection, can either be spoken or silent.

x-chhupal girl

ix chhuplal colonial form of "girl"

x-lobayen female teenager

ix lokbayen colonial form of "female teenager"

x-nuc old woman

ix nuc colonial form of "old woman"

h-dzon male hunter

h-men male medicine maker

x-men female medicine maker

(men means "maker" as a noun or "to make"

as a verb. There are other professions which

use the word men in them such as h-men

xanab (male shoe maker) and one could add

the word dzac (medicine) to form h-men dzac

(male medicine maker) if that became

essential, but normally by h-men / x-men

everyone understands that a shaman is being

referred to.)

From the above two lists it is clear that because a gender determinator is used for one of a pair of complimentary nouns that it is not necessarily true that it is used for the other. Some of the pairs are:

xibpal x-chhupal

tancelem x-lobayen

xib x-chhup

nuc xib x-nuc

yum xunan

h-men x-men

tzo, h-tzo x-tux (hen turkey)

ah tzo ix tux (colonial usage)

The following are some examples of the modern use of ah:

ah kin priest, now referring to the priest

of the Cruzoob of Quintana Roo.

ah tepaloob "the ruling ones"; one of the

deities called upon in h-men

rituals.

ah can titziloob

"the ones of the four corners of the world"; another set of deities.

18. In the colonial times the use of ah and ix was very common in Mayan names:

Ah Na Pot Xiu

Ah Xupan Nauat

Ah Kin Chilam Balam

Ix Chel

Ix Kan Le Ox

Ix Titibe

The naming convention of ah / ix plus na plus the mother's father's surname plus the father's father's surname was a common way in which a person referred to himself or herself in the early colonial period and this naming convention continued up to the end of the 19th century in some of the remote Mayan groups. It seems that every child born to a particular union would carry this name, and of course that would amount to confusion if there weren't alternative names, which of course there were. The word na is probably derived from the na ("house"; vowel of regular length) although it might come from na ("mother"; vowel clipped). We have not come across any explanation of this naming convention in the various colonial works such as dictionaries, grammars, etc., so the meaning and pronunciation of na is unknown to us. An example of how this naming convention worked is:

Ah Na Menche Uc husband

Ix Na Kin Couoh wife

Children of this union:

Ah Na Couoh Uc

Ix Na Couoh Uc

Today in some towns it is quite common to use the x- in front of female names. Here are some Spanish names with their Mayan equivalents:

Nicolasa X-Nico

Victoria X-Bicha

Emilia X-Mila

The use of h- in front of male names is much less common:

Manuel H-Uel

As a sign of respect the Spanish convention of preceding the given name with Don and Doña is now common practice.

Don H-Uel Doña X-Ana

Don Julio Doña Bicha

Also common today is to precede a woman's name with Mam. The use of Mam indicates a greater degree of familiarity than the use of Doña. In some towns this convention is carried out to such a degree that generally the use of Doña seems to indicate a woman of non-indigenous origin and the use of Mam is applied to a woman considered to be Mayan.

Benancia Mam Ben

Olga Mam Olga

Example of usage:

Nin caah na Mam Bicha. "I am going to Mam Bicha's house."

Note: Houses seemingly belong to the women of the

Mayan society. An example of how the people feel about

this is to be found in the way people refer to houses

as shown in the example given above.

19. Mention was made above of alternative names, a feature which was a necessity when using the older naming convention. Today alternative names are still a common feature. These are called baxal kabaob (play names). These baxal kabaob can be almost anything but more often than not are animal names:

X-Mucuy turtledove

X-Pepen butterfly

X-Nichh bite

Much frog

Cay fish

Bach road runner

X-Changa ape

Chocolate chocolate

20. Gender, particularly in animals, is also determined by the use of the particles xibil (male) and chhupul (female):

xibil ceh (male deer) chhupul ceh (female deer)

xibil pek (male dog) chhupul pek (female dog)

The word ton (penis) is sometimes used to indicate the male gender:

ton pek (male dog)

ton uacax (bull)

21. Inanimate objects show no gender as noted above. There is no need to do so because gender is not shown in other parts of speech.

NOUNS FROM OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH

AND OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH FROM NOUNS

22. -il: Many adjectives can become nouns by adding the suffix -il which when used in this manner acts somewhat like "-ness" in English:

kohaan (sick) kohaanil (sickness)

lob (bad) lobil (badness)

23. Verb and nouns are sometimes distinguishable only by syntax as is the case with some English noun/verbs which are distinguishable only by syntax. For example hanal is both the noun for "food" and the intransitive verb for "to eat".

Taz ten in hanal. Bring me my food.

Tac in hanal. I want to eat.

24. Nouns and verbs can be readily transformed into one another by the addition or subtraction of verbal suffixes:

miz, mizib broom

miztic to sweep something. -ic is the

general transitive suffix.

Tan in miztic in uotoch yetel u miz X-Tina.

"I am sweeping my house with X-Tina's broom."

25. -Vl: Adjectives can be formed from nouns by tacking a vowel which agrees with last vowel in the noun onto the noun and ending the word with -l ( (noun)-Vl ). Examples:

caan (sky) caanal (high, tall)

cab (earth) cabal (low, short)

pet (circle) petel (round)

xib (male) xibil (male)

boc (stench) bocol (stinking)

chhup (female) chhupul (female)

Examples of usage:

Tin betic in col tuux yan le caanal kaxo.

"I am making my garden where there is that high forest."

Otzil xunan; hach cabal u bacil.

"Poor woman; she is very short." (Literally: her bones are very short)

Ma ta cimzic le chhupul kekena. "Don't kill this sow."

Other Uses of the -il Suffix in Nouns

26. By adding -il to the name of a town a person can show what town he is a member of:

Ho (Mérida) Hoil (a person from Mérida)

Komchheen Komchheenil (a person from Komchheen)

uaye (here) uayil (a person from here)

Dzoc in ualic tech ma uayileni, Maxcanulilen.

"I just told you I am not from here, I am from Maxcanul."

The use of -il for this purpose seems to be relatively recent. The colonial usage was to prefix the name of the town with the gender markers ah and ix.

Cacal (Tixcacal) Ah Cacal

Coh (Ticoh) Ah Coh

Mani Ix Mani

Oxkutzcab Ix Oxkutzcab

27. By adding -il to a noun and following it by another noun an attributive relationship is formed between the two nouns in which the attribute of the second noun is given to the first noun:

uahil ixim corn bread (tortilla), from uah

(bread) and ixim (corn).

hail chheen well water, from ha (water) and

chheen (well).

xaanil na thatched house, from xaan (palm

leaf) and na (house).

28. Tozzer noted that collective nouns are formed by adding -il to an adjective and placing the possessive marker u in front of the word:

kohaan (sick) u kohanil (the sick)

otzil (poor) u yotzil (the poor)

This usage is now archaic. The present method is to pluralize the adjective:

kohaan kohaanoob

otzil otziloob

ayikal (rich) ayikaloob (the rich)

The -il works as a suffix in other parts of speech with various effects which are noted in the following sections: 56, 57, 104.

The -il makes its appearance in hieroglyphic writings in the form of Thompson glyphs 24 and 116 (Zimmermann glyphs 80 and 62.) It seems that the hieroglyphic -il had the same general functions as the modern -il.

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