Mayan Sign Language
Template:Short description Template:More footnotes needed Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherTemplate:Main other Mayan Sign Language (Template:Langx or yucateca) is a sign language used in Mexico and Guatemala by Mayan communities with unusually high numbers of deaf inhabitants. In some instances, both hearing and deaf members of a village may use the sign language. It is unrelated to the national sign languages of Mexico (Mexican Sign Language) and Guatemala (Guatemalan Sign Language), as well as to the local spoken Mayan languages and Spanish.
Yucatec Mayan Sign Language
Yucatec Maya Sign Language, is used in the Yucatán region by both hearing and deaf rural Maya. It is a natural, complex language which is not related to Mexican Sign Language, but may have similarities with sign languages found in nearby Guatemala.
As the hearing villagers are competent in the sign language, the deaf inhabitants seem to be well integrated into the community – in contrast to the marginalization of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Mayan Sign Language. Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
The oral language of the community is the Yucatec Maya language.
Highland Mayan Sign Language
In the highlands of Guatemala, Maya use a sign language that belongs to a "sign language complex" known locally in the Kʼicheʼ language as Meemul Chʼaabʼal and Meemul Tziij, "mute language." Researcher Erich Fox Tree reports that it is used by deaf rural Maya throughout the region, as well as some traders and traditional storytellers. These communities and Fox Tree believe that Meemul Chʼaabʼal belongs to an ancient family of Maya sign languages.[1] Fox Tree claims that Yucatec Maya Sign Language is closely related and substantially mutually intelligible.
Footnotes
- ↑ Navigating North and South for Native Knowledge by Patricia Valdata for DiverseEducation.com, 2005.
Further reading
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- Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". A 4-hour film documentary on the Yucatecan community with scenes of the deaf and their uses of sign.
- Smith, Hubert L. (1977–2006) A corpus of film and video expressly devoted to the Maya deaf and archived at The Smithsonian Institution.
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External links
Template:Languages of Guatemala Template:Languages of Mexico Template:Sign language navigation