Yucatec Maya

Yucatec Maya, or simply Maya to its speakers, is spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula i.e. the south east of Mexico and most of Belize. It is in the Yucatan branch of the Mayan languages family.

It has around 800,000 speakers

Mayan hieroglyphic writing

Nowaadys, Yucatec Maya is written using the Latin script, introduced during the conquest of Yucatán by the Spanish in the 16th century.

Before the arrival of the Conquistadors, it was written using Mayan glyphs.

Although Glyphs were displaced by the Spanish writing system, Glyphs were only ever written and understood by an educated elite, and so Maya is historically an oral language. This in part explains why there is no standardised orthography. In other words Maya words when written will have different spellings depending on who's writing them.

Basic Maya phrases Learn

Yucatec Maya. Numbers. 1 to 10 Learn

The Spanish Cuatro 'four' and cinco 'five' are widely used by Maya speakers instead of kan and ho. See uchicago.edu.

Sample video in Yucatec Maya

Resources

Learn Maya online with Na'atik Language and Culture Institute / Na'atik, Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas
Counting in Maya
Spoken Yukatec Maya

Translations kindly provided by Erica Matos-Lindsey.