Author : Charles Andrew Hofling
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 40,86 MB
Release : 2014
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781607813415
The first extensive dictionary to document the language and culture of the southern Yucatan's Lacandon Maya
Author : Judith Aissen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 902 pages
File Size : 40,27 MB
Release : 2017-05-12
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 1351754793
The Mayan Languages presents a comprehensive survey of the language family associated with the Classic Mayan civilization (AD 200–900), a family whose individual languages are still spoken today by at least six million indigenous Maya in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. This unique resource is an ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Mayan languages and linguistics. Written by a team of experts in the field, The Mayan Languages presents in-depth accounts of the linguistic features that characterize the thirty-one languages of the family, their historical evolution, and the social context in which they are spoken. The Mayan Languages: provides detailed grammatical sketches of approximately a third of the Mayan languages, representing most of the branches of the family; includes a section on the historical development of the family, as well as an entirely new sketch of the grammar of "Classic Maya" as represented in the hieroglyphic script; provides detailed state-of-the-art discussions of the principal advances in grammatical analysis of Mayan languages; includes ample discussion of the use of the languages in social, conversational, and poetic contexts. Consisting of topical chapters on the history, sociolinguistics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse structure, and acquisition of the Mayan languages, this book will be a resource for researchers and other readers with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic anthropology, language acquisition, and linguistic typology.
Author : Suzanne Cook
Publisher : Springer
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 34,68 MB
Release : 2016-03-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 1461491118
The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, with active links to audio-video recordings, serves as a comprehensive guide to the botanical heritage of the northern Lacandones. Numbering fewer than 300 men, women, and children, this community is the most culturally conservative of the Mayan groups. Protected by their hostile environment, over many centuries they maintain autonomy from the outside forces of church and state, while they continue to draw on the forest for spiritual inspiration and sustenance. In The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, linguist Suzanne Cook presents a bilingual Lacandon-English ethnobotanical guide to more than 450 plants in a tripartite organization: a botanical inventory in which main entries are headed by Lacandon names followed by common English and botanical names, and which includes plant descriptions and uses; an ethnographic inventory, which expands the descriptions given in the botanical inventory, providing the socio-historical, dietary, mythological, and spiritual significance of most plants; and chapters that discuss the relevant cultural applications of the plants in more detail provide a description of the area’s geography, and give an ethnographic overview of the Lacandones. Active links throughout the text to original audio-video recordings demonstrate the use and preparation of the most significant plants.
Author : Charles A Hofling
Publisher : University of Utah Press
Page : 679 pages
File Size : 14,16 MB
Release : 2012-03-13
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 1607819783
A highly valuable dictionary of the Mopan (Mayan) language, providing introductory grammatical description, as well as parts of speech, examples, cross-references, variant forms, homophones, and indexes....
Author : Stephen Houston
Publisher : Getty Publications
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 10,1 MB
Release : 2021-12-28
Category : Art
ISBN : 1606067451
The first study devoted to a single sculptor in ancient America, as understood through four unprovenanced masterworks traced to a small sector of Guatemala. In 1950, Dana Lamb, an explorer of some notoriety, stumbled on a Maya ruin in the tropical forests of northern Guatemala. Lamb failed to record the location of the site he called Laxtunich, turning his find into the mystery at the center of this book. The lintels he discovered there, long since looted, are probably of a set with two others that are among the masterworks of Maya sculpture from the Classic period. Using fieldwork, physical evidence, and Lamb’s expedition notes, the authors identify a small area with archaeological sites where the carvings were likely produced. Remarkably, the vividly colored lintels, replete with dynastic and cosmic information, can be assigned to a carver, Mayuy, who sculpted his name on two of them. To an extent nearly unique in ancient America, Mayuy can be studied over time as his style developed and his artistic ambition grew. An in-depth analysis of Laxtunich Lintel 1 examines how Mayuy grafted celestial, seasonal, and divine identities onto a local magnate and his overlord from the kingdom of Yaxchilan, Mexico. This volume contextualizes the lintels and points the way to their reprovenancing and, as an ultimate aim, repatriation to Guatemala.
Author : John Montgomery
Publisher :
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 43,97 MB
Release : 2004
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN :
Yucatec Maya, the most widely spoken Maya language, can be heard throughout Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, in Belize, and in parts of Guatemala. This unique guide is the perfect reference for visitors to the rainforests, beaches, and spectacular archaeological sites of the Maya regions. Ideal for travelers, linguists, and anthropologists, it includes: 2,700 total dictionary entries; Spanish equivalents for all entries; phonetic pronunciation for all Maya words and phrases; a basic Maya grammar guide; and practical cultural information.
Author : Andrew K. Scherer
Publisher : University of New Mexico Press
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 13,98 MB
Release : 2024-12-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0826366570
Substance of the Ancient Maya: Kingdoms and Communities, Objects and Beings collects twelve essays by top scholars that highlight what is new in research pertaining to the ancient Maya. Subjects range from updated political histories of major kingdoms in the southern Maya Lowlands to explorations of the nature of Maya writing and materiality. These essays were inspired by the scholarship of Stephen Houston and celebrate his transdisciplinary commitment to research in anthropological archaeology, epigraphy, and art history. The contributions in this volume are organized into two sections that respectively reflect different scales from which to approach the substance of the ancient Maya—from hand-held objects to entire kingdoms. This dichotomy reflects the breadth of questions central to current research on the Maya. It also illustrates how certain themes, such as the relationship between the living and the realm of the supernatural, are fundamental to both thinking by and about the Maya at all scales. A diversity of methods is not only embodied by this assemblage of essays but is also spread equally across the two sections of the book, illustrating that archaeologists, epigraphers, geographers, and art historians can equally contribute to the substance of kingdoms and communities, as they can to objects and beings. Collectively, these contributions show how the objects and beings that composed the Classic Maya world were both literal and sacred substances that mediated relations not only among living people but with gods and ancestors. A final chapter by Stephen Houston reflects on unfinished projects of the ancient Maya as a metaphor for all of the work yet to be done to move forward in our studies of the past.
Author : Suzanne Cook
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 715 pages
File Size : 47,61 MB
Release : 2019-08-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0803271557
Xurt’an (the end of the world) showcases the rich storytelling traditions of the northern Lacandones of Naha’ through a collection of traditional narratives, songs, and ritual speech. Formerly isolated in the dense, tropical rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, the Lacandon Maya constitute one of the smallest language groups in the world. Although their language remains active and alive, their traditional culture was abandoned after the death of their religious and civic leader in 1996. Lacking the traditional contexts in which the culture was transmitted, the oral traditions are quickly being forgotten. This collection includes creation myths that describe the cycle of destruction and renewal of the world, the structure of the universe, the realms of the gods and their intercessions in the affairs of their mortals, and the journey of the souls after death. Other traditional stories are non-mythic and fictive accounts involving talking animals, supernatural beings, and malevolent beings that stalk and devour hapless victims. In addition to traditional narratives, Xurt’an presents many songs that are claimed to have been received from the Lord of Maize, magical charms that invoke the forces of the natural world, invocations to the gods to heal and protect, and work songs of Lacandon women, whose contribution to Lacandon culture has been hitherto overlooked by scholars. Women’s songs offer a rare glimpse into the other half of Lacandon society and the arduous distaff work that sustained the religion. The compilation concludes with descriptions of rainbows, the Milky Way as “the white road of Our Lord,” and an account of the solstices. Transcribed and translated by a foremost linguist of the northern Lacandon language, the literary traditions of the Lacandones are finally accessible to English readers. The result is a masterful and authoritative collection of oral literature that will both entertain and provoke, while vividly testifying to the power of Lacandon Maya aesthetic expression.
Author : Matthew G. Looper
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 39,32 MB
Release : 2019-04-22
Category : Art
ISBN : 1477318054
The white-tailed deer had a prominent status in Maya civilization; it was the most important wild-animal food source at many inland Maya sites and also functioned as a major ceremonial symbol. Offering an in-depth semantic analysis of this imagery, The Beast Between considers iconography, hieroglyphic texts, mythological discourses, and ritual narratives to translate the significance and meaning of the vibrant metaphors expressed in a variety of artifacts depicting deer and hunting. Charting the progression of deer as a key component of the Maya diet, especially for elites, to the coupling of deer and maize in the Maya worldview, The Beast Between reveals a close and long-term interdependence. Not only are deer depicted naturalistically in hunting and ritual scenes, but they are also ascribed with human attributes. This rich imagery reflects the many ways in which deer hunting was linked to status, sexuality, and war as part of a deeper process to ensure the regeneration of both agriculture and ancestry. Drawing on methodologies of art history, archaeology, and ethnology, this illuminating work is poised to become a key resource for multiple fields.
Author : Eva van Lier
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 1137 pages
File Size : 44,30 MB
Release : 2023-12-07
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0192594362
This handbook explores multiple facets of the study of word classes, also known as parts of speech or lexical categories. These categories are of fundamental importance to linguistic theory and description, both formal and functional, and for both language-internal analyses and cross-linguistic comparison. The volume consists of five parts that investigate word classes from different angles. Chapters in the first part address a range of fundamental issues including diversity and unity in word classes around the world, categorization at different levels of structure, the distinction between lexical and functional words, and hybrid categories. Part II examines the treatment of word classes across a wide range of contemporary linguistic theories, such as Cognitive Grammar, Minimalist Syntax, and Lexical Functional Grammar, while the focus of Part III is on individual word classes, from major categories such as verb and noun to minor ones such as adpositions and ideophones. Part IV provides a number of cross-linguistic case studies, exploring word classes in families including Afroasiatic, Sinitic, Mayan, Austronesian, and in sign languages. Chapters in the final part of the book discuss word classes from the perspective of various sub-disciplines of linguistics, ranging from first and second language acquisition to computational and corpus linguistics. Together, the contributions showcase the importance of word classes for the whole discipline of linguistics, while also highlighting the many ongoing debates in the areas and outlining fruitful avenues for future research.
