Mayan Sign Language

{{Short description|Sign language used by Mayan communities in Mexico and Guatemala}} {{More footnotes needed|date=May 2013}} {{Infobox language |name=Maya Sign Language |states=[[Mexico]], [[Guatemala]] |region=Isolated villages in south-central [[Yucatán (state)|Yucatán]], [[Guatemalan Highlands]] |speakers=17 deaf in Chican |date=2012 |ref=e18 |speakers2= 400 hearing signers Chican (1999); unknown number elsewhere |familycolor=sign |family=Meemul Chʼaabʼal / Meemul Tziij |dia1=Highland Maya Sign |dia2=Yucatec (Chicán, Nohkop, Nohya, Trascorral, Cepeda, Peraza) |iso3=msd |glotto=yuca1236 |glottorefname=Yucatec Maya Sign Language |map = Sign Languages of Turtle Island.svg |mapcaption = Various sign languages of [[Turtle Island]] (North America), excluding [[Francosign languages]]. The Maya sign languages are labelled in brown. }} '''Mayan Sign Language''' ({{Langx|es|Lengua de señas maya}} or ''yucateca'') is a [[sign language]] used in [[Mexico]] and [[Guatemala]] by [[Maya peoples|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 language|Spanish]].

==Yucatec Mayan Sign Language== '''Yucatec Maya Sign Language''', is used in the [[Yucatán Peninsula|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 into the community – in contrast to the marginalization of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Mayan Sign Language. {{citation needed|date= December 2013}}

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 [[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.<ref>[http://diverseeducation.com/article/5345/ Navigating North and South for Native Knowledge] by Patricia Valdata for DiverseEducation.com, 2005.</ref> Fox Tree claims that Yucatec Maya Sign Language is closely related and substantially mutually intelligible.

==Footnotes== <references/>

==Further reading== {{refbegin|indent=yes}} * {{cite journal |last=Johnson |first=Robert E. |year=1991 |title=Sign language, culture & community in a traditional Yucatec Maya village |journal=Sign Language Studies |volume=73 |issue=73 |pages=461–474 |doi=10.1353/sls.1991.0031 |jstor=26204776 }} * {{cite journal |last1=Shuman |first1=Malcolm K. |last2=Cherry-Shuman |first2=Mary Margaret |year=1981 |title=A brief annotated sign list of Yucatec Maya sign language |journal=Language Sciences |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=124–185 |doi=10.1016/S0388-0001(81)80017-4 }} * {{cite journal |last=Shuman |first=Malcolm K. |year=1980 |title=The sound of silence in Nohya: a preliminary account of sign language use by the deaf in a Maya community in Yucatán, Mexico |journal=Language Sciences |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=144–173 |doi=10.1016/S0388-0001(80)80009-X }} * {{cite conference |last=Du Bois |first=John W. |year=1978 |title=Mayan sign language: An ethnography of non-verbal communication |conference=77th annual meeting, [[American Anthropological Association]] |location=Los Angeles }} * {{cite AV media |last=Smith |first=Hubert L. |year=1982 |title=The Living Maya |url=https://search.mnlink.org/Record/956a1c35-ac65-47af-9a80-2a8a04b50f32 }} 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. * {{cite journal |last=Fox Tree |first=Erich |date=Spring 2009 |title=Meemul Tziij:An Indigenous Sign Language Complex of Mesoamerica |journal=Sign Language Studies |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=324–366 |doi=10.1353/sls.0.0016 }} * {{cite book |last=Le Guen |first=Olivier |year=2012 |chapter=An exploration in the domain of time: from Yucatec Maya time gestures to Yucatec Maya Sign Language time signs |editor1=U. Zeshan |editor2=C. de Vos |title=Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights |pages=209–250 |location=Berlin |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter & Ishara Press |doi=10.1515/9781614511496.209 |doi-access=free |isbn=978-1-61451-203-5 }} {{refend}}

==External links== *[https://mexico.sil.org/language_culture/signed-languages-mexico/yucatec_maya_sign_language SIL overview of YMSL] *[http://ymslproject.org/en/ Yucatec Maya Sign Language Documentation Project]

[[Category:Village sign languages]] [[Category:Mesoamerican languages]] [[Category:Sign languages of Mexico]] [[Category:Sign languages of Guatemala]] [[Category:Language isolates of North America]] [[Category:Maya peoples]]