Combined Dictionary–Concordance of the Yucatecan Mayan Language
Updates are in process and will be posted as the sections are completed.

Research Year:  1997
Culture:  Maya
Chronology:  Pre-Columbian
Location:  Kom Cħeen, Yucatán
Site:  Kom Cħeen

Table of Contents

A guide to the Dictionary–Concordance and other material on the Mayan Language

Code letters for the various dictionary entries showing the source of the origin of that material

Combined Dictionary–Concordance of the Yucatecan Mayan Language

Other material on the Mayan Language

A guide to the Dictionary–Concordance and other material on the Mayan Language

Dictionary-Concordance of the Yucatecan Mayan Language

The dictionary-concordance continues to be a work-in-progress, there being much more to be done not only in reorganizing the existing entries, but also in augmenting the existing entries by bringing in other material from sources not yet worked on. The dictionary-concordance is made of two parts: 1) entries from various dictionaries, commentaries, and translations, and 2) entries from various texts. There are codes for the various source material so that the users can locate the origin of that material.

Entries from various Dictionaries, Commentaries and Translations

Dictionaries: So far the Mayan-Spanish part of dictionary CAM (Pérez, 1898) and the Spanish-Mayan part of dictionary EMS (Diccionario de Elementos del Maya Yucateco Colonial, 1970), the MTM (Motul Mayan-Spanish) and the SFM (San Francisco Mayan-Spanish) are the only dictionary lists which have been completely entered. However, the MTM and SFM dictionary entries have not yet been fully integrated into the pre-existing entries. At this time only selected entries from MTS (Motul Spanish-Mayan, SFM (San Francisco Mayan-Spanish), SFS (San Francisco Spanish-Mayan), and VNS (Vienna Spanish-Mayan) have been entered. The word lists from EBL / EBM (Roys, Ethnobotany of the Maya, Latin-Mayan and Mayan-Latin/English) and NEL / NEM (Barrera, Nomenclatura Etnobotanica Maya, Latin-Mayan and Mayan-Latin/Spanish) material has also been used.

The Combined Mayan-Spanish and Spanish-Mayan Vocabularies pdf contains complete vocabulary entries from Beltrán's "Arte de el Idioma Maya Reducido a Succintas Reglas, y Semilexicon Yucateco", 1742 edition, Birds of the Maya, Pérez's "Coordinación Alfabetica", 1898, Michelon's "Diccionario de San Francisco", Spanish-Mayan section, ADEVA, 1976, Combined Solana / Motul II with reference to S.F. Spanish-Mayan, Roys' "The Ethno-Botany of the Maya", 1931, Pío Pérez's "Diccionario de la Lengua Maya", 1877, "Calepino Maya de Motul", Barrera's "Nomenclatura Etnobotanica Maya", 1976, Roys' "Ritual of the Bacabs", 1965, Michelon's "Diccionario de San Francisco" Mayan-Spanish section, ADEVA, 1976, Pérez's Ticul published transcript, 1898, Acuña's "Bocabulario de Maya Than", 1972.

The code letters for the various dictionary entries are as follows:

Commentaries and Translations: For the commentaries and translations there is at the beginning of the entry a more extensive code which will help the user find the original. For example, Roys/Chu/123: means that the material is to be found on page 123 of Roys, The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. Up to this time this type of material includes Arzápalo’s El ritual de los Bacabes, Avendaño’s Relación de las dos entradas que hice a la conversión de los gentiles ytzáex, y cehaches (1996: Verlag Anton Sauwein, Möckmühl), Barrera’s El Libro de los Libros de Chilam Balam, Barrera and Morley’s The Maya Chronicles, Cogolludo’s Historia de Yucatan, Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan (1966: Editorial Porrua, Mexico), Redfield’s Chan Kom, Roys’ Ethnobotany of the Maya, Roys’ The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, Roys’ The Prophecies for the Maya Tuns or Years, and Roys’ Ritual of the Bacabs.

Entries from various Texts

Texts: The Mayan text lines which are appended to the dictionary entries are selected entries from a full concordance which was made of the following texts:

1)  The edited version of the texts from the book Post Conquest Mayan Literature
is a collection of colonial texts from the Books of Chilam Balam which are given in the book Post Conquest Mayan Literature based on Pre-Columbian Sources. Line numbers from this source have the initial letter "A" through "K" which indicate that the lines come from Sections A through K in the book. Line numbers are of the format a123, b234, etc.

2)  Ritual of the Bacabs
is an edited version of the texts from The Ritual of the Bacabs. Also included is a ritual from the Chumayel. rc078.012 is the line number format for the ritual from the Chumayel indicating that the text is to be found on page 78 phrase 12. For the Ritual of the Bacabs rb123.012 indicates that the text is to be found on page 123 phrase 12.

3)  Modern H-Men Rituals
is a collection of H-Men chants from various published sources as well as some taped sources. Among the published sources are Redfield-Villa Rojas’ Chan Kom (lines prefaced by RR), Villa Rojas’ Quintana Roo (RV), Andrews’ Balankanche (RD), Arzápalo’s Textos Religiosos Modernos (RA), and Tec’s Abejas y Hombres (RJ). The transcribed tape sources are from an unknown source reputably of Ticul (RT), Antonio Hau of Teabo (RH), Felipe Paz of Tecoh (RP), and Felipe Paz’s Idzat (RQ).

4)  Medical Recipes from Ethnobotany of the Maya
contains medical recipes given in Roys’ Ethnobotany of the Maya. The line identification numbers for this file are mr123.012 meaning recipe number 123 phrase 12. There is included within this file some edited material, and the line numbers for the edited material is me012.012. Also included are some recipes from the Book of Chilam Balam of Na. The line identification numbers of this material are nr010, meaning Na recipe number 10.

5)  Selected texts which were not found in any of the above
is the edited version of selected texts from the Books of Chilam Balam of Tizimin and Chumayel which are not included in 1 or 2. The editing consists mainly of segmenting the words in conformance with the generally accepted way the words are perceived to be and changing spelling of words which are not spelled in the generally accepted way. While the database from these texts was not included as a whole in the database which made up the foundation from which the concordance was made, all of their parts are included either by being part of the database 1 and database 6 or by being included directly. Those lines which have been included directly from the Chumayel and the Tizimin have the format c030.012, meaning that the line is from page 30, line 12 of the Chumayel.

6)  Significant variants from any of the above
is a collection of lines and semi-edited texts from various sources which are significant variants from any of the texts mentioned above. Significant variants from The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin has been given line numbers in the format of ta123, indicating that the line from the Tizimin has a significant variant from the edited line a123 of the Post Conquest Mayan Literature. Similarly ka345 and ia456 indicate significant variants found in the Kaua and the Ixil manuscripts from line a345 and a456. vb123.012 indicates an unedited variant from the Ritual of the Bacabs.

Combined Dictionary–Concordance of the Yucatecan Mayan Language

For an explanation on how the various letters of the alphabet should be pronounced see Beltrán’s Arte, paragraphs 2-16 and Bolles’ Grammar, chapter on "The Alphabet". It should be noted that manuscripts and printed text of the late 1500’s - early 1600’s, the Motul dictionary for example, used the ¶ symbol within a definition to show that an example of usage follows. This custom has been maintained in the following dictionary-concordance.

A        Update posted:  May 16, 2003
B        Update posted:  May 16, 2003
C        Update posted:  May 16, 2003
CH     Update posted:  May 23, 2003
CHH  Update posted:  May 28, 2003
DZ      Update posted:  May 29, 2003
E        Update posted:  June 2, 2003
H        Update posted:  June 4, 2003
I         Update posted:  June 11, 2003
K        Update posted:  June 16, 2003
L        Update posted:  June 19, 2003
M        Update posted:  July 10, 2003
N        Update posted:  July 14, 2003
O        Update posted:  July 16, 2003
P        Update posted:  October 28, 2003
PP      Update posted:  November 19, 2003
T        Update posted:  February 19, 2004
TH      Update posted:  February 19, 2004
TZ      Update posted:  February 19, 2004
U
UA
X
Y
Z      Update posted:  February 11, 2011    (1.0 MB pdf)

Endnotes:   C | CH | CHH | DZ | E | H | K | M | N | O | P | PP | T

Other material on the Mayan Language

An Autobiographical Note Written by José Sabino Uc in Yucatec Mayan in 1871  (June 14, 2005)

Two Yucatecan Mayan Ritual Chants  (May 25, 2005)

The Mayan Calendar, Solar - Agricultural Year, and Correlation Questions  (243 KB PDF)
Assertion 1
Possible Methods of Intercalating Leap year Days
An Apparent Contradiction
Assertion 2
Conclusion
Sources Cited
Appendix 1:   The complete text on lines A601-A614
Appendix 2:   lines I001-I032 from Zuyua Than yetel Naat
Appendix 3:   U Bubukil Haaboob
Appendix 4:   The Two Parts of U Xoc Kin
Appendix 5:   The Relationship between the Ah Cuch Haaboob and the Christian Year
Appendix 6:   Julian versus Gregorian Calendars and the Correlation Question

The Shamans of Yucatán, México  (March 31, 2005)

The Mayan Franciscan Vocabularies: A Preliminary Survey  (re-posted: April 20, 2010)
The Bocabulario de Maya Than / Viena
The Calepino Maya de Motul
The Solana, Motul II, and San Francisco Spanish-Maya Dictionaries
The San Francisco Spanish-Maya Dictionary
The Ticul Spanish-Maya Dictionary
The Friars Alonso de Solana and Gaspar González de Nájera
The Controversy over the Solana Dictionary
Status Report
Abbreviations used and Dictionary–Concordance equivalents
Acknowledgement
Sources Cited

Appendix A:   How the Mayan vocabularies grew: A tentative sketch
Appendix B:   Coronel’s Discursos and Coronel’s Doctrina
Appendix C:   Comparison of the Solana and Motul II  Dictionaries
Appendix D:   Comparison of the Ticul  to the Motul II / Solana / San Francisco II

Beltrán’s Arte, published 1746  [PDF file - 68.3 MB]
Buenaventura’s Arte, published 1684
Coronel’s Arte, published 1620

A Grammar of the Yucatecan Mayan Language by David & Alejandra Bolles  (Update posted: April 2, 2004)

A revised edition of A Grammar of the Yucatecan Mayan Language by David & Alejandra Bolles is available from:
Labyrinthos Press, 3064 Holline Court, Lancaster, California 93535
Copyright © 2001, ISBN 0-911437-49-5

Also available from Labyrinthos is the revised edition of Post Conquest Mayan Literature by David Bolles.
Copyright © 2003, ISBN 0-911437-55-X

The following are derived from a variety of edited files. All footnotes, correction marks, accent marks on Mayan words, and other such have been omitted.

Vienna Dictionary
Derived from edited transcript of the Vienna Dictionary, also known as Bocabulario de Maya Than de Viena.

Motul Mayan-Spanish Dictionary
Motul Mayan-Spanish Dictionary continued
Search files from edited transcript of the Motul Mayan-Spanish Dictionary, also known as Calepino Maya de Motul.

Motul Spanish-Mayan Dictionary and the Solana Dictionary
Transcript of both the Motul Spanish-Mayan Dictionary, (Diccionario Maya de Motul) and the Solana Dictionary.
Motul Spanish-Mayan Dictionary and the Solana Dictionary continued
A transcript of both the Motul Spanish-Mayan Dictionary (Diccionario Maya de Motul) and the Solana Dictionary, which happens to be at the Hispanic Society in NYC. These dictionaries are both derived from a single original source. The San Francisco Spanish-Mayan Dictionary is also derived from the same original source, but was somewhat altered in the transcript done by Juan Pío Pérez. It is included so that the researcher can see what the edited file looks like. Should the edited files of the other dictionaries be wanted they may be requested.

Various Texts:  (Updated November, 2004)
from Post Conquest Mayan Literature
from Cantares de Dzitbalche
from Chumayel
from Assorted Colonial Documents
Colonial Rituals
Medical Recipes
Modern Rituals
Creation Stories
Modern Stories and Songs

Various Grammars
Made up of the various grammars listed above: Beltrán’s Arte, Buenaventura’s Arte, Coronel’s Arte, and A Grammar of the Yucatecan Mayan Language, by David & Alejandra Bolles.

The following texts have been typed into the computer by copying the material as closely as possible. There are occasionally footnotes which talk about problems with the transcription. Other than that, few changes are made to the original in these files. Transcription work on Coronel is not yet finished.

Beltrán’s Novena (1740) and Doctrina (1754 and 1866) [PDF file - 453 KB]
Coronel’s Discursos Predicables (1620) [PDF file - 1.0 MB]

The following texts have been reworked to a certain degree, and footnotes have been added to clarify various problems encountered in the texts.

Avandaño’s Relación de las dos entradas que hice a la conversión de los gentiles ytzáex, y cehaches. (1996)
Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan. (1966)

Cogolludo’s Yucatan o sea Historia de Esta Provincia (1971:Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, Graz).

Table of Contents
Cogolludo, Volume 1
Cogolludo, Volume 2

Ancient Maya Causeways

An Analysis of Roads Listed in the Colonial Dictionaries and their Relevance to Pre-Hispanic Linear Features in the Yucatán Peninsula, paper by David Bolles & William J. Folan (1997).

For additional information:

List of publications available on the Mayan Language of Yucatán, México

Submitted 05/01/1998 by:
David Bolles
davidbolles@att.net

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