Recent decipherments of Classic Maya hieroglyphs (ca. a.d. 250 to 850) reveal phonological and morphological patterns that, through epigraphic and historical analyses, isolate a single, coherent prestige language with unique and widespread features in script. We term this language “Classic Ch’olti’an” and present the evidence for its explicable historical configuration and ancestral affiliation with Eastern Ch’olan languages (Ch’olti’ and its still‐viable descendant, Ch’orti’). We conclude by exploring the possibility that Ch’olti’an was a prestige language that was shared by elites, literati, and priests and had a profound effect on personal and group status in ancient Maya kingdoms.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/300142

The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions1

An unchallenged assumption regarding the linguistic history of the Ch’olan branch of the Mayan language family is that this common language was “split ergative”—demonstrating an ergative/absolutive...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/513056

Split ergativity in the history of the Ch'olan branch of the Mayan language family

The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project: A Report of the 2004 Field Season

The Sak Tz'i' toponym was discovered by Linda Schele and Nikolai Grube, who first analyzed the inscriptions mentioning this archaeologically unidentified site (1994). Recently, the Sak Tz'i' polity has been discussed by various epigraphers (Guenter and Zender 1999; Martin and Grube 2000; Anaya Hernández 2001; Anaya Hernández, Guenter and Zender 2003; Biró 2004). While I will offer suggestions about the possible political extent or sphere of influence of Sak Tz'i', as previously analyzed by Armando Anaya Hernández (2001), it is ultimately a matter of archaeological investigation to unravel the exact location of the site. In this paper, I enumerate the monuments referring to Sak Tz'i' and analyze the relevant passages of the texts, with final comments about the political history of the site as far as it is known through the limited set of data.1 As a supplement to the above-mentioned works, this is directed to interested specialists and non-specialists alike, in hopes that a critical edition of the texts with additional comments will be of some help to future epigraphers and historians. Our understanding of the information recorded in Classic Maya inscriptions is not complete, and even more limited in the case of unprovenienced monuments. Hopefully, some archaeologist will find the remains of the site that once was called Sak Tz'i', and the picture here presented will be supplemented by inscriptional and archaeological data, as we gain a better reconstruction of the past of another Classic Period center. The order of the texts here presented follows a time frame from the earliest dedicated inscription to the latest. It should be noted that this is a hypothetical order, as most of the inscriptions are fragments, the last dates of which are not plausible as dedication dates. I will add, where possible, the drawing or drawings available to me; however, it will be helpful if other researchers complete my data in the future. 2005 Mesoweb: <www.mesoweb.com/articles/biro/SakTzi.pdf>.

https://mesoweb.com/articles/biro/saktzi.pdf

Sak Tz'i' in the Classic Period Hieroglyphic Inscriptions

Esta tesis indaga en la forma en la que la lengua escrita en el Clasico maya indicaba la temporalidad. Para ello ha sido necesario definir que tipo de lengua era la utilizada en aquella epoca, un asunto muy controvertido en el campo de la epigrafia, pero de urgente resolucion, dado que implica la comprension misma de los textos. Para investigar este problema se utilizan las lenguas mayas coloniales y actuales que se relacionan de manera mas estrecha con la del Clasico, esto es, las ramas cholana y yucatecana. Se estudian cholti, chorti, (cholano oriental), chol y chontal (cholano occidental) y [100] yucateco moderno y colonial e itzaj (rama yucatecana). El primer capitulo de la tesis revisa algunos puntos importantes de la linguistica actual en cuanto a las categorias de tiempo, aspecto y modalidad, y resalta la necesidad de un analisis que reconozca la independencia de cada una de esas categorias. Le siguen los capitulos dedicados a las lenguas mayas ya nombradas, donde se ofrece un analisis comparado de todas ellas en cuanto a la expresion del tiempo. El tiempo no se marca en el verbo; existen adverbios temporales (pero tambien de lugar con deriva temporal) y construcciones con funcion temporal pero [100] es el discurso per se, es decir, la trama de significado en la que se integra cada enunciado, de la que dicho enunciado obtiene un sentido temporal. Los capitulos finales describen el modelo de la lengua de las inscripciones y constatan las continuidades con las lenguas estudiadas, asi como los mecanismos por los que se expresa la categoria de tiempo

Categoría de tiempo en las inscripciones mayas del período clásico

Comparison of a set of Colonial Acalan Chontal documents with inscriptions of the Classic period reveals that a deictic enclitic -ihi or -iji(y) occurs on verbs in similar contexts in both bodies of texts. Certain forms of this clitic have been interpreted elsewhere as inflection for aspect, or as a different temporal clitic from that proposed here. This investigation confirms that the element is an adverbial clitic, and thus allows its identification in otherwise unrecognized instances. While serving as an integral part of the discourse pattern, it also helps demarcate more clearly the lines between aspect and time in the verb systems under study. In a broader view, this proposal carries implications both for the nature of Classic Maya historical narrative and for the identity of the languages in which it was written.

Temporal Deixis in Colonial Chontal and Maya Hieroglyphic Narrative

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Temporal Deixis in Colonial Chontal and Maya Hieroglyphic Narrative