Mayan Sign Language

Mayan Sign Language is a sign language used in Mexico 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 and Spanish.

Yucatec Mayan Sign Language

Yucatec Mayan Sign Language, also known as Nohya Sign Language, is used in the Yucatán region by both hearing and deaf rural Maya. It is a natural, complex language 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 in the community – in contrast to the marginalisation of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Mayan Sign Language, which appears to be used in at least one village as a means of social segregation and oppression (see below).

The oral language of the community is the Yucatec Maya language.

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 K'iche' language as Meemul Ch'aab'al 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 Ch'aab'al belongs to an ancient family of Maya sign languages.^[3] Fox Tree claims that Yucatec Maya Sign Language is closely related and substantially mutually intelligible.^[4]

In at least one highland community, the sign language is used by "an impoverished class of deaf and hearing servants who are often forbidden to speak aloud in the presence of their masters: a hidden class of rural peons who call themselves 'slaves'."

Footnotes

1. ↑ Maya Sign Language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Yucatec Maya Sign Language". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 
3. ↑ Navigating North and South for Native Knowledge by Patricia Valdata for DiverseEducation.com, 2005.
4. ↑ Yucatec Maya Sign Language

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, 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 YMSL

Languages of Guatemala Official language Spanish Indigenous languages Achi Akatek Awaketek Ch'orti Chuj Garifuna Itza' Ixil Jakaltek K'iche' Kaqchikel Mam Mopan Poqomam Poqomchi' Q'anjob'al Q'eqchi' Sakapultek Sipakapense Tektitek Tz'utujil Uspantek Xinca Yucatec Maya Sign languages Guatemalan Sign Language Mayan Sign Language Portal

Languages of Mexico Official languages More than 100,000 speakers Spanish Nahuatl Yucatec Maya Mixtec Zapotec Tzeltal Maya Tzotzil Maya Otomí Totonac Mazatec Ch'ol Huastec Chinantec Mixe Mazahua Purépecha 10,000 - 100,000 speakers Tlapanec Tarahumara Amuzgo Chatino Tojolab'al Sierra Popoluca Chontal de Tabasco Huichol Mayo Tepehuán Trique Cora Popolocan Huave Cuicatec Yaqui Q'anjob'al Tepehua Less than 10,000 speakers Pame Mam Chontal of Oaxaca Chuj Tacuate Chichimeca Jonaz Huarijío Chocho Pima Bajo Q'eqchí Lacandón Jakaltek Matlatzinca Seri Ixcatec K'iche' Kaqchikel Paipai Cucapá Mototzintleco Kumiai Pápago Kikapú Ixil Cochimí Kiliwa Aguacatec Non-official languages Plautdietsch Venetian English French Basque Catalan Hebrew Arabic Chinese Mocho’ Sign languages Mexican Sign Language Mayan Sign Language Note: The list of official languages is ordered by decreasing size of population.