yucatec-maya

An Introductory Note

As with many under resourced (and often indigenous) languages, resources may unintentionally record a specific dialect. Similarly, when learning from a teacher, they will speak in their own dialect, as there is rarely a "standardized" way of speaking. The teacher I've mostly learned from is from near Mérida, the capital of the state of Yucatán – but there are speakers further eastward across the entire peninsula. All this to say, if you have found this page since you are learning as well, hopefully my notes align with what you're hearing – and if they don't, it might be dialect!

Nouns

There is no grammatical gender in Yucatec Maya.

Plurality

Plurality can be marked with the suffix (o)'ob. When the noun ends in a vowel, the first o is dropped. For example, mesa'ob:tables. Otherwise, it is suffixed to the end, paalo'ob:children.

Personal Pronouns

In Mayanist literature, there are two types of pronouns: Set A and Set B. You are unlikely to hear them referred to as such by a native speaker, even one with grammatical training. You may hear Set A described as "dependent pronouns" (as they are dependent on being used as part of a phrase) and you may hear Set B described as "suffixes" (as they are suffixed to a verb stem). I am not a Mayanist, so I will be using the terms Dependent Pronouns and Suffixal Pronouns, amongst other terms, which will be made clear in their respective sections.

Dependent Pronouns

Dependent pronouns mark:

• SUBJ of transitive verbs
• SUBJ of imperfective intransitive verbs
• Possession (POSS)

Where {verb} is used, this indicated that there will also be a suffix to the verb when the dependent pronoun is required. Additionally, some notes about 1PL. In Yucatán, k is the preferred form. When the aspect marker (as discussed below) is k, in casual speech, the dependent pronoun is dropped (rather than k k). In careful speech, it is realized as ek and thus (k ek). The suffixed form, k {verb}-e'ex is said to be used in the eastern part of the peninsula. Both Hofling and Andrade refer to the suffixal form as being an exclusive 1PL (as in, we but not you).

When the noun following the dependent pronoun begins with a vowel, there is a "harmony" letter that is prefixed to it. In the case of 1st person or 2nd person, it is w- (ex. otoch:house – in wotoch:my house) and for 3rd person, it is a y- (u yotoch:his or her house). The preceding w or y may be dropped in the case where it may be confused with a more common noun or phrase. For example, w may not be used with áanalte':book, in order to disambiguate it from áanal:below. Thus, a áanalte'o' rather than a wáanalte'o'.

An alternative eastern POSS form is k {verb}-o'on, such as k paalo'on:our child.

How to use these pronouns can be found in the more detailed sections below:

• Possession
• Verbs

Suffixal Pronouns

Suffixal pronouns mark:

• Direct object of a transitive verb
• SUBJ of perfective and dependent intransitive verbs
• Simple sentences with adjectives and nouns (he is, you are, etc.) Or put another way, "stative SUBJ with adjectives and nouns"Hoffling, pg 692

These are appended to the noun that the subject is. Thus, Parryen ⧸ I am Parry.

Note that these are much the same as the independent pronouns below, minus the consonants at the beginning (or leti' in the case of 3SG/3PL).

Independent Pronouns

Independent pronouns answer the question "who", provide emphasis of the person (e.g. "you yourself"), and function as indirect pronouns (preceded by ti':to).

Articles

There are no articles in Yucatec Maya. The definite article is assumed and the indefinite article can be considered the same as the demonstratives, described below.

Demonstratives

All demonstratives are preceded by le and the noun (or phrasal noun) is suffixed with either a', o', or e' to indicate the nearness to the speaker. Prior to the suffix just listed, there may be a plurality suffix (o)'ob, as well as a dependent pronoun, to indicate possession.

As worked example:

The nearness suffixes are as follows:

• -a': near, this
• -o': far, that
• -e': over there, not physically present

An example without any optional items:

Suffixes

il

when used dependent pronouns, means "to be from somewhere", ex. Yucatanilen ⧸ I am from Yucatan. See also Something of Something possession below.

Body Parts

Many body parts are logical conjunctions of other body parts. For example, kaal:neck + k'ab:hand gives u kaal k'ab – what is the "neck of the hand"? The wrist!

Some additional examples below, in a general form. To grant possession, -il is still required (as seen below in the section on posession. Thus, u kaalil in k'ab ⧸ my wrist.

• u kaal k'ab: wrist
• u kaal ook: ankle
• u yich ook: the ankle bone
• u yaal k'ab: fingers
• u neek' ich: pupil

Ich normally means "eye", but as you can see above, when used with another body part, it means the "protrusion of X", often referring to bones.

Aal is a variant of paal:child, normally used by women to jokingly(?) refer to their child, since aal also means "weight" or "heavy" (i.e. the burden of pregnancy and/or motherhood).

Verbs

Note: many of the examples below are taken from Briceño Chel's book on Yucatec Maya verbs. They predominantly use janal:to eat.

Copular Sentences

There is no copula in Yucatec Maya, but one still needs to express simple sentences such as "I am X". This is done with the suffixal pronoun attached to the thing that you/he/she is. For modifying copular sentences with different aspects, see Verbalized Adjectives below.

Intransitive Verbs

Intransitive verbs are verbs with an actor (i.e. the person doing the verb-ing) and no object upon which they are doing an action. In English, that might be "I eat", which has no object, versus "I eat pasta", which does.

Intransitive verbs, barring the special forms below, use the dependent pronoun. The dependent pronoun is either combined with the aspectual marker listed below, or used standalone. When the aspect marker below is followed by a -, it means that the aspect marker is prefixed to the dependent pronoun. Some markers also have -e', which is suffixed to the verb. In the case where a verb begins with a vowel, the appropriate w/y consonant is prefixed to the verb (kin wok'ol).

Habitual/Indefinite Present (k-)

Common actions with no explicit temporality. Kin janal ⧸ I eat.

Progressive Present (t(áan))

Action is occurring as the speaker is saying it. Some speakers will drop áan and append the dependent pronoun to t. Thus, tin versus táan in. Tin janal ⧸ I am eating.

Compulsive Present (yaan)

Mandatory actions. Yaan in janal ⧸ I must eat.

Terminative Perfective (ts'(o'ok))

Finished actions that are not yet considered "past" actions, i.e. still exist within the present context. This is referred to in Andrade, §2.12, as a perfective form. These actions occur further in the past that the immediate perfective below. Some spekers will drop o'ok and append the dependent pronoun to ts'. Thus, ts'in versus ts'o'ok in. Ts'in janal ⧸ I (already) ate.

Immediate Perfective (táant -e')

Actions that have just completed. These actions occur closer to the present than the terminative, above. Táant in janale' ⧸ I just ate.

Assurative Future (je'(el) -e')

Implies that the action will be carried out in the future. Since the abbreviated form, je' ends in a glottal stop, there is no need to suffix the dependent pronoun to it and is not normally done so. Je' in janale' ⧸ I must eat.

Immediate Future (n- -ka'aj)

Actions that will be carried out in the future. Note that for 1SG, the n in in is dropped. Nika'aj janal ⧸ I will eat.

Emphatic Immediate Future (k- -n)

Actions that will be carried out in the future. This form, compared to the immediate future above, places an emphasis on the actor carrying on the action. Note that for 1SG, the n in in is dropped. Kin janal ⧸ It is I who will eat.

Special Forms

There are two special forms for intransitive verbs. These forms do not apply to verbs of motion, stative verbs, or verbalized adjectivs.Briceño Chel, p24

Both forms are infixed between the verb and the suffixal pronoun.

Completetive (-naj-)

Used for totally completed actions in the past. For example, with janal:to eat, Janalnajen ⧸ I ate.

Indefinite Future (bíin -nak-)

Also known as the "prophetic future", it is used for distant, uncertain future events. Again, with janal:to eat, Bíin janalnaken ⧸ One day, I will eat.

Verbalized Adjectives

Similar to languages such as Chinese, adjectives can become verbs, which often change their meaning from "I am (adjective)" to "I acting in an (adjective) way", replete with the aspectual variations, such as "I was (adjective). Thought of another way, because there is no copula, one must conjugate the adjective, in lieu of conjugating the copula.

Verbalized adjectives, in addition to the suffix indicated aspect, use the suffixal pronouns.

Completetive (-chaj)

Indicates that the speaker has completely become the adjective, in the past. Using the above, xáan:slow, xáanchajen ⧸ I was late, or literally "I was slow".

Possession

Possession is a structurally complex topic (see, Possession in Yucatec Maya by Christian Lehmann, 2003) and so this section may have a few overlapping subsections.

Simple Possession

Simple possession is for saying "my brother". They use the dependent pronouns, above. For example, "my brother" would be in suku'un.

With Classifiers

Like many languages, nouns can be classified into groups. However, with Yucatec Maya, this is only applied to possession – that is, only when someone possesses the noun, does one need to classify it, if the classification of the noun is not obvious or could otherwise have a different interpretation. For example, in the abstract in peek' could mean either "my dog" or "my hot dog". To clarify which is meant, a speaker would use a possessive classifier. Thus, "my hot dog" would be in wo'och peek' and "my (domesticated) dog" would be in walak' peek', where o'och:food.CL and alak':domesticated animal.CL are the base forms and add the harmony -w mentioned under Dependent Pronouns.

Lehmann, §3.2.2.2.3.1.3.2, mentions that the set of classifiers is open and (at least as of 2003 and what I've been able to find online), there is no exhaustive treatment of them. Modified from Lehmann T19, a list of classifiers is found below.

Something of Something

In other languages, this might be called genitive possession, e.g. the door of the school or the book of the teacher. However, as there is no GEN in Yucatec Maya, it is something different. Andrade touches on this in §4.60.3.

The basic structure is as follows u {possessed}il {possessor}. For example, u najil xook ⧸ the school or more literally "the building of studying". When more than one "possessed" is needed, they are all modified with the u -il form. For example, "the market of the school" would be u najil u koonolil u najil xook, where u najil koonol:market is the base form. You can see that koonol:selling gets modified by u -il.

In the case of plurals, the plural suffix, -o'ob comes after -il: u meyajilo'ob janal:the chores for food. In the case of personal possession, the personal POSS pronoun comes before the last noun: u najil in xook:my school.

Inalienable Possession

Possession of something that is "inalienable", i.e. something that is intrinsically part of the possessor, such as an organ, uses -el, rather than -il.

Examples of inalienable objects:

• bak': flesh
• baak: bone
• ts'o'ots: hair
• k'i'ik': blood
• ts'o'om: marrow

Adjectives

Adjectives come before the noun, ex. le chak abala' jats'uts ⧸ this red plum is beautiful, where chak:red comes before abal:plum. To make a copular sentence (i.e "is") with an adjective, it comes after the noun: abale' chak ⧸ the plum is red.

Adjectives can be made intense by reduplication: k'an:yellow → k'ank'an:very yellow.

Plurality

The standard way of pluralizing adjectives is with the suffix -o'ob, just like nouns. Thus, In suku'uno'ob jach ki'ichkelemo'ob. ⧸ My older brothers are handsome.

However, some adjectives are used only with plural nouns and some only with singular nouns.

• big: nojoch (SG), nukuch (PL)
• small: (chi)chan (SG), mejen (PL)

When an adjective is used with -il (see below), it uses the plural form of the adjective.

Adjectives with -il

Adjectives can be suffixed with -il to indicate a "selective quality", which could be loosely translated as "of all" the nouns in the current speaking context, this is the "adjective" one. For example, u chakil abal jats'uts ⧸ (of all the plums) the red plum is beautiful. It is not clear at present if this also indicates superlative nature (e.g it is reddest), or if it is just emphatic.

Colors

There are 6 primary colors from which all other colors are derived.

• boox: black
• k'an: yellow
• chak: red
• ya'ax: green
• ch'ooj: blue
• sak: white

Some example combinations:

• sakboox: grey (white + black)
• chakch'ooj: purple (red + blue)
• chakk'an: orange (red + yellow)

There are 2 semi-primary colors that do not create additional colors:

• chakwa', which is also the word for chocolate, and is used for brown
• chúukin, which is also the word for coal, and is used for grey

Prepositions

ti'

sort of a generic preposition, corresponding to at, to, for, by, in, (de, en, a in Spanish)

Sentence Structures

Questions

• ba'axten: why
• bix: how
• jay: how many, how much – requires a numeric classifer
• kux: and (as a rejoinder), e.g. kux teech?:and you?
• máax: who
• tu'ux: where

Negation

• ma': no
• mixba'al: nothing
• mixtu'ux: nowhere
• mina'an: there is nothing / I have nothing, etc.

Simple negation with ma' requires the -i' sentence/clausal suffix on the last word being negated, unless there is already a suffix on the word.

For example: Ma' ke'elen doesn't have -i' because ke'el:cold already has the suffixal pronoun -en:1SG. Ma' ke'eli' does require the -i' suffix, since there is no other suffix on ke'el. This is only applicable to very simple sentences. In the case of longer sentences, where the negation is only a single clause in the sentence, -i' would be required, regardless. You can see that in the beginning of the sentence Ma' wi'ijeni' táan in janal le ka'aj luk'en tin wotoche'.

Clausal Suffixes

e'

Clausal terminator. It is affixed to the last word in a clause to indicate that it is complete. In na'e' ki'ichpam ⧸ My mom is pretty.

i'

Sentence terminator. Andrade (§3.7) notes that sentences almost invariably end with -i' when the final "construction" of the stentence requires a suffixal pronoun. This will dominate other suffixal particles – i.e. in cases where there could be multiple, -i' will be used.

Common Structures

Ability to do something

Ability is indicated with oojel plus the verb. Thus, In woojel paax ⧸ I can play an instrumentJorge et al., s6e12, where paax:to play an instrument is the verb one is able to do. Note that because the dependent pronoun is used, oojel is prefixed with w/y.

To Like Something

Liking something requires indicating how one likes it. That is, what sense is used to enjoy the thing.

There are 4 senses used, plus a generic catch-all for everything else:

• xikin (ear): aurally
• chi' (mouth): taste (specifically of food)
• ni' (nose): olfactorly
• ich (eye): visibly
• t'aan: everything else

The general structure is:

You may also hear, for chi' and xikin, the use of ki':rich (as in "rich food") instead of uts.

Numbers

Numbers

Yucatec Maya is a vigesimal (base 20) language. Mayan numerals are in parentheses, they are most often written vertically, with the 1s place at the bottom.

0: juub (𝋠)
1: jun (𝋡)
2: ka' (𝋢)
3: óos (𝋣)
4: kan (𝋤)
5: jo' (𝋥)
6: wak (𝋦)
7: uk (𝋧)
8: waxak (𝋨)
9: bolon (𝋩)
10: lajun (𝋪)

In addition to the teens having the standard "ones + lajun" form below, 11 and 12 each have additional forms that one may hear. Note that when appending lajun:ten, if the number ends in a vowel, that vowel is repeated with a '.

11: junlajun / balak' (𝋫)
12: ka'alajun / lajka'aj (𝋬)
13: óoxlajun (𝋭)
14: kanlajun (𝋮)
15: jo'olajun (𝋯)
16: waklajun (𝋰)
17: uklajun (𝋱)
18: waxaklajun (𝋲)
19: bolonlajun (𝋳)

Similar to other Mayan languages, the work for 20 comes from the word for person ma'ak, indicating the origin of the system: all of one's fingers and toes.

20: junk'aal (𝋡𝋠)
400: baak' (𝋡𝋠𝋠)
8,000: p'íik (𝋡𝋠𝋠𝋠)

Numbers are combined with tu. Thus, 53 is óoxlajun tu ka'ak'aal (13 and 2 x 20).

Of the symbols themselves, 𝋡 are called ch'aaj and 𝋥 are called either jarat' or jilib. Juub (𝋠) is the name for zero and the symbol.

Numeric Classifiers

All numbers require a classifier. The three most common classifiers are:

• p'éel: any non-living object, such as shoes
• túul: people or animals
• kúul: plants

These classifiers are suffixed to the number.

Bibliography

• A Grammar of Modern Yucatec by Manuel J. Andrade, University of Chicago, 1955.
• Los Verbos del Maya Yucateco Actual by Fidencio Briceño Chel, Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indigenas, 2e, 2021.
• Comparative Maya (Yucatec, Lacandon, Itzaj, And Mopan Mayan) by Charles Andrew Hofling, in The Mayan Langauges, ed. Aissen, England, and Maldonado, Routledge, 2017.
• Jorge et. al YouTube
• Possession in Yucatec Maya by Christopher Lehmann, Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Erfurt, Nr. 10, 2003.

Resources

• A fantastic resource with copies of a variety of resources
  • Some of these resources are listed in the bibliography.

Last Updated: 2025-03-02 20:45:15