Maya Languages Today: Living Tongues

Of all the threads of Maya culture, language is the most central. The Maya speak more than thirty living languages, with a combined speaker population of roughly six million people, and the survival of those languages — and the revitalization of those that are most endangered — is the single most important cultural question facing the modern Maya. This page is an introduction to the Maya languages today: their diversity, their speakers, their vitality, the institutional structures that have been built to support them, and the threats they face. It is part of the site’s broader coverage of the living Maya: heritage and modern descendants, and links to detailed pages on modern Maya identity, the Caste War, Maya textiles, and the regional distribution of modern Maya peoples.

The Maya language family is described in greater technical detail on the Maya languages from Classic to modern page; this page focuses on the modern languages, their speakers, and their political and educational situation in the 21st century.

The Maya language family

Maya (also called Mayan to distinguish the language family from individual languages) is a family of more than thirty living languages spoken in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, with substantial diaspora communities in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The family is conventionally divided into a number of branches, the most important of which are:

• Yucatecan. Includes Yucatec Maya (also called Maaya t’aan, the dominant Maya language of the Yucatán Peninsula), Itza’ (a few hundred speakers in the Petén), Mopan (around 10,000 speakers in Belize and the Petén), and Lacandon (Hach Winik) (a small number of speakers in Chiapas).
• Huastecan. Includes Wastek (Huastec) (around 100,000 speakers in Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, and Veracruz). The Huastec region is geographically distant from the rest of the Maya area, and the Huastec language has been isolated from the rest of Maya for many centuries.
• Western Highland (Mamean). Includes Mam (around 600,000 speakers in Huehuetenango, Quetzaltenango, and Chiapas), Ixil (around 70,000 speakers in the Ixil triangle of Quiché), Tektiteko (small), and Awakateko.
• Eastern Highland (Quichean). Includes K’iche’ (around 1.1 million speakers in the central and western highlands of Guatemala), Kaqchikel (around 500,000 speakers in the central highlands), Tz’utujil (around 50,000 speakers around Lake Atitlán), Achi (around 100,000 speakers in Baja Verapaz), Sakapulteko, Sipakapense, Uspanteko, Poqomam, and Poqomchi’.
• Q’eqchian. Includes Q’eqchi’ (around 800,000–1,000,000 speakers in Alta Verapaz, Petén, and Belize) and the small Ch’olti’ remnant.
• Cholan. Includes Ch’ol (around 200,000 speakers in Chiapas), Chontal (a small number of speakers in Tabasco), Ch’orti’ (around 30,000–60,000 speakers in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), and the extinct Ch’olti’.
• Tzeltalan. Includes Tzeltal (around 500,000 speakers in Chiapas) and Tzotzil (around 400,000 speakers in Chiapas). Some classifications group Tzeltalan with Cholan.
• Tojolabalan. Includes Tojolabal (around 50,000 speakers in Chiapas) and Chuj (around 70,000 speakers in Huehuetenango and Chiapas).
• Q’anjob’alan. Includes Q’anjob’al (around 100,000 speakers in Huehuetenango and Chiapas) and Jakalteko (Popti’) (around 50,000 speakers in Huehuetenango and Chiapas).
• Chujean. A small branch including Chuj and Tojolabal in some classifications.

The major living Maya languages are treated in more detail on the What languages do modern Maya speak? page, which includes a full inventory with speaker counts and regional distributions.

Speaker populations and vitality

The following table summarizes the speaker populations of the major Maya languages. Estimates are necessarily approximate, as different sources give different numbers, and the distinction between “speaker” and “fluent speaker” is often not clear in census data.

(Adapted from Ethnologue, ALMG data, and INPI Mexico figures. Figures are rough.)

The vitality of these languages varies dramatically. Yucatec Maya, K’iche’, Q’eqchi’, Mam, Kaqchikel, Tzeltal, and Tzotzil each have hundreds of thousands of speakers and continue to be transmitted to children in their traditional territories. They are not on the verge of extinction, although all are losing ground to Spanish in some domains. Itza’, Mocho’, Tektiteko, and Sakapulteko are critically endangered, with very small speaker populations and minimal transmission to children. The remaining languages are in between, with varying trajectories of growth, stability, or decline.

Language shift and the dominance of Spanish

Language shift — the gradual replacement of a Maya language by Spanish (or, in Belize, English) as the language of the home, the school, and the workplace — is the central problem facing Maya languages today. The drivers of language shift include:

• Urbanization. Maya migrants to cities often shift to Spanish within a generation or two. In Guatemala City, Quetzaltenango, and the major Mexican cities, Maya-language use has been in decline for decades.
• Education. The dominant language of formal education in the Maya region has been Spanish, and Maya-language children have often been required to learn in a language they do not understand. The 1996 Guatemalan Peace Accords committed the government to bilingual education; implementation has been slow.
• Economic pressure. The dominant language of paid employment, especially in the formal sector, is Spanish. Maya-language speakers often face a wage penalty for their language, especially in urban and tourist-economy contexts.
• Stigma. Maya languages have historically been stigmatized in national discourse, associated with rurality, poverty, and lack of education. The 20th-century Pan-Maya movement has substantially reduced this stigma, but it remains a factor in language shift.
• Media and the internet. The dominant languages of television, radio, print, and online media in the Maya region are Spanish (and, to a much smaller extent, English in Belize). Maya-language media has grown but remains marginal.

The result has been a steady decline in the use of Maya languages, especially in urban and semi-urban contexts. In rural highland Guatemala and Chiapas, Maya languages remain the first language of most children. In the diaspora, the picture is mixed: some Maya diaspora communities have maintained their languages across generations, while others have shifted rapidly to English or Spanish.

The alphabet reform

Until the mid-20th century, Maya languages in Guatemala were written in a variety of inconsistent orthographies, often developed by foreign missionaries and linguists. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) developed a set of practical orthographies for many Maya languages, but these orthographies varied in their conventions and were not widely adopted by Maya communities. Beginning in the 1980s, the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) undertook a systematic reform of Maya-language orthographies, with the goal of producing standardized, community-endorsed writing systems for each of the 22 Maya languages recognized in Guatemala.

The 1980s and 1990s saw the development of the so-called ALMG unified alphabet, which has been adopted (with some local variation) for most Maya languages in Guatemala. The unified alphabet uses glottalized consonants (indicated by an apostrophe, as in K’iche’, Q’eqchi’, Kaqchikel), five vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u), and a set of conventions for tone and stress. The reform has been controversial: some linguists and Maya intellectuals have argued for alternative conventions, especially for the use of tone marks. The current ALMG conventions are the most widely used, but alternative orthographies exist, and the debate continues.

In Mexico, the Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas (INPI) and the Dirección General de Educación Indígena (DGEI) have developed their own orthographic standards, which are broadly similar to the ALMG conventions but differ in details. The differences between Guatemalan and Mexican orthographies for the same language (e.g., K’iche’ vs. Kiche, Yucatec Maya vs. Maaya t’aan vs. maya yucateco) can be a barrier to cross-border communication, and the harmonization of orthographies is an ongoing project.

The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG)

The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) is the official Guatemalan body for the recognition, standardization, and promotion of the country’s 22 Maya languages. Founded in 1986 under the Ley de Idiomas Nacionales framework, the ALMG is composed of community-elected representatives of each of the 22 Maya language communities, with a small professional staff. The ALMG’s work has included:

• Standardized orthographies for each of the 22 languages, developed in consultation with communities and linguists.
• Bilingual education materials in each language, including textbooks, dictionaries, and grammars.
• Public literacy campaigns in Maya languages, including the training of bilingual teachers.
• Translation and interpretation for Maya-speaking public officials and litigants.
• Documentation and research on Maya languages, including the production of dictionaries, grammars, and ethnographies.

The ALMG has been a central institution of the Pan-Maya movement and has been supported by international donor agencies including the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The ALMG’s work has been critiqued for over-emphasis on standardization, for under-resourcing of the smallest languages, and for tensions with the Sepaqtzijolaj Tzuqb’al and other community-based language bodies.

In Mexico, the equivalent body is the Dirección General de Educación Indígena (DGEI) of the federal education ministry, which has played a similar role in promoting bilingual education and the production of Maya-language materials. The Mexican 2001 constitutional reform and the 2003 Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples) established the right of indigenous peoples to use their languages in public life, and the Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas (INPI) has been the lead federal agency on indigenous issues since 2018 (succeeding the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI), founded in 1948).

Bilingual education

Bilingual education has been the single most important institutional response to language shift in the Maya region. The basic idea is simple: Maya-speaking children should be able to learn in their first language for the first years of school, and gradually transition to Spanish (or, in Belize, English) as they acquire academic skills. The reality has been more complicated.

In Guatemala, the Programa Nacional de Educación Bilingüe (PRONEB) was launched in 1980, with support from USAID, and has been the main vehicle for Maya-language bilingual education. PRONEB has had mixed results: while it has produced a substantial number of bilingual teachers and a meaningful body of Maya-language materials, it has been criticized for inadequate funding, for poor implementation, and for the use of outdated teaching methods. The 1996 Peace Accords called for the expansion of bilingual education, and the 2003 Ley de Idiomas Nacionales mandated it; implementation has been slow.

In Mexico, the Dirección General de Educación Indígena (DGEI) has run the bilingual education system in Maya regions of Chiapas, the Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. The Mexican system has had similar strengths and weaknesses, with the additional challenge of uneven state-level implementation. The Zapatista autonomous education system in Chiapas, which has been developed since 1994, is an interesting alternative model, with substantial community control over content and language of instruction.

In Belize, the Maya language program in primary schools has been developed since the 1990s, with support from the Maya Leaders Alliance and the Maya Education Foundation. The program has been particularly strong in the Toledo District, where Mopan and Q’eqchi’ communities have substantial autonomy in school governance.

Language revitalization

For the smallest and most endangered Maya languages — Itza’, Mocho’, Sakapulteko, Tektiteko, Ch’orti’ in some areas, and Lacandon (Hach Winik) — language shift has reached a stage at which revitalization is the only option. The basic strategies of language revitalization include:

• Master-apprentice programs, in which a fluent elder is paired with a younger learner for intensive immersion.
• Language nests, in which very young children are immersed in the endangered language.
• Documentation, including the recording of speakers, the production of dictionaries and grammars, and the development of teaching materials.
• Community-based language planning, in which the community itself takes ownership of revitalization efforts.
• Digital tools, including language-learning apps, online dictionaries, and social media communities.

The Itza’ language of the Petén is one of the most cited cases of Maya language revitalization. By the early 2000s, Itza’ had only a few hundred elderly speakers, and the language was considered moribund. A revitalization effort led by the Guatemalan NGO OXLAJUJ AJPOP and the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala has produced teaching materials, a community language school, and an emerging generation of younger learners. The situation remains fragile, but Itza’ is no longer considered moribund.

The political stakes of Maya languages

The protection of Maya languages is, in the 21st century, a major political issue. The 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) explicitly recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to revitalize, use, develop, and transmit to future generations their languages. Guatemala’s 1996 Peace Accords and 2003 Language Law, Mexico’s 2001 constitutional reform and 2003 linguistic rights law, and Belize’s evolving constitutional recognition all include language rights provisions. The implementation of these provisions, however, has been slow and uneven.

The political stakes of Maya language use are real. In 2018, the Guatemalan Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that the government must provide public services in Maya languages, a ruling that the Pan-Maya movement has cited as a major victory. The implementation of the ruling has been slow. In Mexico, the use of Maya languages in federal courts has been required by law since 2003, but actual provision of interpreters remains limited. In Belize, the Maya Customary Land Tenure case (2007–2015) was decided in favor of the Maya communities, with language rights cited as one of the relevant factors.

The future of Maya languages will depend, in part, on the success of the Pan-Maya movement, the institutional commitment of national governments, the growth of Maya-language media and publishing, and the willingness of Maya communities to continue transmitting their languages to children. The page on modern Maya identity and survival treats the broader political context, and the page on the Maya in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras describes the regional distribution of the major languages. The 21st century is, in many ways, the most important moment in the long history of Maya language survival.

Related pages

• The living Maya: heritage and modern descendants
• Modern Maya identity and survival
• The Caste War and Yucatec resistance
• Maya textiles, weaving, and the huipil
• The Maya in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras
• What languages do modern Maya speak?
• Where do modern Maya people live?
• How many Maya people are alive today?
• Maya languages from Classic to modern
• Maya writing, language, and books

Sources

• Montejo, V. D. (2003). Maya Intellectual Renaissance: Identity, Representation, and Leadership. University of Texas Press. — link
• Cojtí Cuxil, D. (1996). Configuración del pensamiento político del pueblo maya. Grupo Editorial “Quetzal Vuh”.
• Stoll, D. (1999). Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Westview Press. — link
• O’Neill, K. L. (2010). City of God: Pentecostalism, Soccer, and the Making of a Christian Guatemala. University of California Press. — link
• Loucky, J. & Simonelli, J. (2002). Crossing the Waters: Maya and Ladino Interaction in Guatemala. Rowman & Littlefield. — link
• Watanabe, J. M. (1992). Maya Saints and Souls in a Changing World. University of Texas Press. — link
• Hale, C. R. (2006). Más Que Un Indio / More Than an Indian: Racial Ambivalence and the Paradox of Decolonization. SAR Press. — link
• Burns, A. F. (1993). Maya in Exile: Guatemalans in Florida. Temple University Press. — link