Hello everyone. I am adding common names in Maya for the Yucatan Peninsula. At present in the language classification there are five options for Maya. Maya, Maya (Lacandón), Maya (Peninsular), Maya (Q´eqchi), and Maya (Yucatec). The main issue is that Maya (Peninsular) and Maya (Yucatec) are one and the same, and people may upload names in either. Is it possible to join them?
I moved this out of Bug Reports because I don’t think it’s a technical issue. Anyone can add a lexicon. This is more of a policy/community decision.
I don’t know enough about Mayan to recommend a path forward, is there anyone in your region who can provide some insight as to what would be most beneficial for use on iNat?
Thanks Tony, I have asked around and for the Yucatán Peninsula the majority of mayan people speak Maya Peninsular=Maya Yucateco. Some recent immigrants speak tsotsil, tzeltal, chol…
Carlos is correct. Maya Peninsular = Maya Yucateco. The answer to which one should be kept will be invariably arbitrary.
Most people in the peninsula refer to it simply as Maya, but only because Yucatec/Peninsular is the predominant language in the region.
On the other hand, Yucatec is not satisfactory because it can either refer to Yucatán the state (outside of which the language is also spoken) or the whole Peninsula which bears the same name.
Geographically, the most appropriate would be Peninsular, as it includes most of the area where the language is spoken, although it’s arguably the least used in day-to-day communication.
The one thing I think can be agreed upon is that Maya on its own is not necessary because it is similar to saying “Romance” as if Spanish, Italian, etc. were one and only.
My proposal - IF this is something native speakers would prefer - would be to ditch both Yucatec and Peninsular in favor of mayaʼ tʼaan to accomplish the following:
It refers specifically to what is known as Yucatec and not other Yucatecan languages (Lacandón, Itzaj, Mopan)
Direct translation for native speakers will still be “Maya Language” but will only refer to their language and not other Mayan langs.
Favor the endonym of the language instead of a name given by outsiders studying the language. This deals more with sociopolitical questions but is generally appreciated from what I’ve heard in other native communities (Totonac, Nahuatl)
The rest of the Mayan languages would not be uniform then, which I don’t know how to feel about.
i.e. Lacandón would have to be adjusted to Jach-t’aan (Lacandón) and so on.
It’s an interesting proposal but I feel unsure to push it forward not being native and not knowing anyone from the area myself
