Mayan Sign Language is a
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
used in
Mexico
Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...
and
Guatemala by
Mayan communities with unusually high numbers of
deaf inhabitants. In some instances, both hearing and deaf members of a village may use the sign language. It is unrelated to the national sign languages of Mexico (
Mexican Sign Language) and Guatemala (
Guatemalan Sign Language), as well as to the local spoken
Mayan languages
The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and a ...
and
Spanish.
Yucatec Mayan Sign Language
Yucatec Maya Sign Language, is used in the
Yucatán
Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate mun ...
region by both hearing and
deaf rural Maya. It is a natural, complex
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
which is not related to
Mexican Sign Language, but may have similarities with sign languages found in nearby
Guatemala.
As the hearing villagers are competent in the sign language, the deaf inhabitants seem to be well integrated into the community – in contrast to the marginalization of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Mayan Sign Language.
The oral language of the community is the
Yucatec Maya language
Yucatec Maya (; referred to by its speakers simply as Maya or as , is one of the 32 Mayan languages of the Mayan language family. Yucatec Maya is spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic com ...
.
Highland Mayan Sign Language
In the highlands of Guatemala, Maya use a sign language that belongs to a "sign language complex" known locally in the
Kʼicheʼ language as ''Meemul Chʼaabʼal'' and ''Meemul Tziij'', "mute language." Researcher Erich Fox Tree reports that it is used by deaf rural Maya throughout the region, as well as some traders and traditional storytellers. These communities and Fox Tree believe that ''Meemul Chʼaabʼal'' belongs to an ancient family of Maya sign languages.
Navigating North and South for Native Knowledge
by Patricia Valdata for DiverseEducation.com, 2005. Fox Tree claims that Yucatec Maya Sign Language is closely related and substantially mutually intelligible.
Footnotes
Further reading
*Johnson, Robert E. (1991). ''Sign language, culture & community in a traditional Yucatec Maya village'', in Sign Language Studies 73:461-474 (1991).
*Shuman, Malcolm K. & Mary Margaret Cherry-Shuman. (1981). ''A brief annotated sign list of Yucatec Maya sign language.'' Language Sciences, 3, 1 (53), 124–185.
*Shuman, Malcolm K. (1980). ''The sound of silence in Nohya: a preliminary account of sign language use by the deaf in a Maya community in Yucatán, Mexico.'' Language Sciences, 2, 1 (51), Mar, 144–173.
*Du Bois, John W. (1978). ''Mayan sign language: An ethnography of non-verbal communication.'' Paper presented at the 77th annual meeting, American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
, Los Angeles.
* Smith, Hubert L. (1982) "The Living Maya," a 4-hour film documentary on the Yucatecan community with scenes of the deaf and their uses of sign.
* Smith, Hubert L. (1977–2006) A corpus of film and video expressly devoted to the Maya deaf and archived at The Smithsonian Institution.
*Fox Tree, Erich. (2009). ''Meemul Tziij:An Indigenous Sign Language Complex of Mesoamerica'', Sign Language Studies, 9(3):324–366 (Spring 2009)
Abstract
*Le Guen, Olivier. (2012). An exploration in the domain of time: from Yucatec Maya time gestures to Yucatec Maya Sign Language time signs. In U. Zeshan & C. de Vos (Eds.), "Endangered Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguisitic Insights" (pp. 209–250). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter & Ishara Press
External links
SIL overview of YMSLYucatec Maya Sign Language Documentation Project
{{sign language navigation
Village sign languages
Mayan languages
Mesoamerican languages
Sign languages of Mexico
Sign languages of Guatemala