Origin from 1964
The comparative reconstruction of the Mayan language family from its living daughter languages, applied systematically to the family from the 1960s. Cross checks proposed readings of Classic Maya inscriptions against what comparative linguistics says the language actually sounded like.
Facts
Method
Methodcomparative reconstruction of the Mayan language family from its thirty-plus living daughter languages, establishing regular sound correspondences back to a reconstructed proto-language 2 Subject
Subjectthe internal relationships and reconstructed vocabulary of the Mayan language family, and what that reconstruction can and cannot say about the language recorded in Classic Maya inscriptions 2 Identity
Field Category Parent Field Origins
Emerged As Named Discipline Learn More
Kaufman Reconstructs a Family Tree for Thirty Living Languages
Mayan historical linguistics compares the more than thirty living Mayan languages spoken today across Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, establishing the regular sound correspondences between them needed to reconstruct their common ancestor, proto-Mayan, and to work out how and when the family split into its modern branches. The comparative method was applied systematically to the family from the 1960s, most influentially in Terrence Kaufman's reconstructions of proto-Mayan phonology and vocabulary, which gave the family a rigorous internal chronology comparable to what had long existed for Indo-European languages.
The discipline is the linguistic counterpart to Maya epigraphy, working from living speech rather than carved inscriptions, and the two are cross checked against each other constantly, since a proposed reading of a Classic period glyph has to be consistent with what comparative reconstruction says the language actually sounded like at that date. Mayan historical linguistics also documents a real continuity between the language of Classic Maya religious inscriptions and the languages living Maya communities still speak and pray in today, evidence the atlas relies on wherever it connects Classic period religious vocabulary to living Maya practice.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Maya, Figures This source names Maya directly: "The comparative reconstruction of the Mayan language family from its living daughter languages, applied systematically to the family from the 1960s."
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