A Land in the Clouds: San Cristobal de las Casas

On our road trip back from Portland, Oregon, USA to Merida, Yucatan, Mexico this past August, we decided to stop through San Cristobal de las Casas, one of our favorite places on earth.  Driving up in elevation through the mountains, we entered a huge cluster of clouds. We could barely see a few feet in front of us as we passed small homes with huge cornfields scaling up and towering above us.  One of the most preserved areas of all Mayan land, with its vibrant culture, passed down through generations and stretching back to Pre-Columbian days. It is clearly visible here. As you walk around the city and surrounding area you hear people speak the local Maya Language and boom! You’ve been transported to another world, another time and space. 

 

Learning the “Maya Language of the Heart” with Felix in Chamula, Chiapas

We booked our tour through Airbnb with Felix, to see the town of Chamula a few miles outside of San Cristobal. Passing by women in traditional dyed black sheep wool skirts and many fenced areas with grazing sheep (considered sacred to the Tzotzil Maya), we met Felix at the cemetery of Chamula. 

Felix was born in Chiapas and he loves language as well as the history and culture of Maya people. He specializes in the Maya people who live in Chiapas, known as the Tzotzil Maya. He spoke passionately about the residents of this completely Maya-run municipality of Chamula, Chiapas. If you do a little research of Chamula and the Tzotzil Maya you will find a very complex history. The Tzotzil Maya had to fight many different people to get to the point where they now control and completely rule their town and surrounding area, and because of that, they are very unique.  It is also due to that tenacity that they have been able to hold on to their culture so strongly and purely.
 

We learned about some of the traditions and beliefs around spirituality from Felix, including how Tzotzil Maya women had to collect their hair throughout their lives in order to take it with them into the afterlife. It felt fitting since we were strolling through the cemetery.  Felix told us this was one of the rare towns that actually fully preserves and lives in the Maya culture. In the Maya language, one connecting subject is speaking from the heart. With the heart leading how you act and what you do. Below are some of the phrases that we learned from Felix which are used in the Maya language to describe how they live, think and believe.

  • Hun Co on Ton – means happiness and literally means, One Heart or My Heart is One, like your heart is whole and complete. It’s when you are focused on something and enjoying the present – maybe you are working or eating – but you only have one thought, one purpose. 
  • Chim Co on – means My Heart is Two, and is a type of unhappiness, where you have two thoughts or sets of thinking. That is why when the children of the Tzotzil Maya don’t want to do something or they don’t want to go somewhere, instead of dragging them to do that thing – they will actually say no, it is better for you to stay here and not go because it is no good if you go with two hearts. Because people who go with two hearts might suffer an accident or have bad luck. And so parents tell their kids only to go if they go with one heart, Felix told us. 
What a simple yet profound concept! And this is just one aspect of how this word found in the Maya language is woven throughout all of the activities of daily life. It is more than just a word. It is a way of being, a thought and a belief about how to live…
In the Tzotzil Maya language – Felix said there are 52 expressions using the heart, and the main ones are: One Heart, Two Heart and Counting The Heart. 

The Language and Culture Link

It is easy to see with just this one example, how intrinsically linked language and culture are with one another. If you lose one, you risk losing the other, because they are so deeply connected and intertwined. That is why keeping the language alive through families using it in everyday conversation and life is so very important, and yet, there is no easy way to do this. If Spanish is the dominant language being taught at school and being used and reinforced in the dominant Maya workplace, it becomes a complex issue.

Maya Language – A Brief History that Stretches Far Back

Modern Maya languages descend from the Proto-Mayan language, thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago. The Maya language is spoken throughout the Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Chiapas, Mexico and spreads down into Belize, Guatemala and northern Honduras. Maya is spoken by approximately 6 million inhabitants with the language broken up into 6 distinct families: the Huastecan, Quichean, Yucatecan, Qanjobalan, Mamean and Chʼolan–Tzeltalan branches and further divided into 29 different dialects. 
Most of the Maya languages are non-tonal meaning that it does not use pitch to express differences of meaning between words. It uses some very unique sounds for example ‘tz’ and ‘tx’ that are pronounced combining both letters. The letter ‘x’ is also used frequently pronounced as shh as if you are telling someone to be quiet. Some words sounding shape punctuated with the sounds of d, t and n along with x (shh).
According to the writers at the translation dictionary siteMayan languages are mostly non-tonal, with Yucatec (which has the largest number of speakers), Uspantek and one dialect of Tzotzil, having developed tones.

To see translated words and phrases in Maya check out the conversation translator that was organized with the help of the intercultural Maya University of Quintana Roo here.

Example of Maya Numbers

A Dangerous Phenomenon

The Maya language has been in the news lately with information coming out about languages that are in danger of going extinct. One of the worst problems that we have heard from talking to different Maya people whom we have met, befriended and interviewed for our vlog and upcoming documentary film (Faces of the Modern Maya), is the trouble with passing on the language and dialect of Maya to the next generation. As the language is passed down it is continually mixed with other languages to fill the need for words that are not included in the traditional language. You hear Modern Maya spoken around the Yucatan  blended with Spanish and sometimes English words to communicate words that do not have a meaning in Maya. 
The youngest generation, are opting out of learning this complex, beautiful and distinct language because it is not readily taught in the public school system; rather Spanish is. And in some cases with our time spent with Maya families, parents told us children were simply not interested in learning the language; they preferred to solely speak and learn Spanish. We also met doñ Manuel and doña Rosario while documenting the making of pib for the Maya version of Day of the Dead known as Hanal Pixan (which was an amazing experience for us). A slightly older generation – doña Rosario told us she can understand some Maya (Yucatec) but she can not speak it fluently. 
Spanish is the language which many believe is essential for children to learn to go on and follow the line of work or careers they want them to pursue. While this may be true in the financially viable and working sense, to compromise and lose out on learning and passing down the lineage of one’s language, culture and traditions should not need to be sacrificed. 

Look Out For Positive Updates

We will keep all of you posted as updates come along, but we have heard some optimistic discussion that there is the possibility of the Mexican government bringing back the teaching of Maya language in public schools up until the 6th grade here in Merida and the Yucatan.

If this happens, that would be a HUGE positive shift toward the longevity and sustainability of keeping the language alive for Maya people. Organizations that are helping the language continue are consistently becoming more available around the Yucatan with the goal of educating and keeping the language alive as we move into a modern age.  

Parallels to Indigenous People Across The Globe 

This problem and danger of losing the Maya language is not something that is unique to the region. It is something that has tragically been happening all across the world, for example in the United States and Canada with different Native American Tribes and First Nations people.  Opting out of learning their native languages, in order to assimilate into the dominant society and get a job, has been the stuff of tragedy for many bitter years, although it is slowly beginning to change.  

I (Cassie) have struggled with the very same thing, as being half Navajo from New Mexico, USA and never having been taught my language since I didn’t grow up on the Navajo reservation or around that side of my family as much as my other (European) side.  To know Navajo, is to know where you come from as a Diné person. It means you know your name in Navajo, and you know the name of your clan on both your mother and father’s side as well as the name of their parents’ clans. To know your language is to know your culture, and yet sadly this is something that I am still largely missing. 
It is something I will need to learn, as an adult, if I am to fully understand and be a part of my ancestor’s culture. Perhaps that is why this issue is so personally urgent to me. I see a similar story, a similar journey and a similar struggle to hold on to that part of yourself passed down from your ancestors. That desire to preserve it, to hold it, and to pass it down to the next generation grows stronger with age. We don’t want to ever forget who we are and where we come from.  If language is the spoken word of culture, the only true way to preserve that culture entirely is through speaking that language then, yes?

The Threat of the Death of a Language

What if the language is not passed on to the next generation? Well then it dies. After that happens, how can we ever fully remember and preserve the culture, and the traditions of our ancestors? This is a problem that our friend and guide, Felix is attempting to solve through the assistance of technology, and we couldn’t be more excited to learn more about this developing endeavor.

Using Technology to Keep the Language Alive – A Maya Language Learning App

Among travelers and ex-pats, language learning apps have become a popular way of assimilating into the local culture. Life hackers create conversational programs that will get you by and fluent quickly in Spanish, English, Chinese, etc. But we had not heard anything about the development of a Maya language app that would help you converse fluently in Maya communities until we met Felix – who is attempting to change all of that. 
And that is where technology can come into play. Felix told us how he is now in the development stages of creating an app that will help people learn Maya along with helping to preserve the local culture and make Maya a popular language to learn and use. What better way to preserve culture than to preserve the language in its entirety while making it easy for the people native to that language, to learn it through technology?

To separate the language of a people and the culture of a people is impossible and why would you ever want to? The necessity of keeping the Maya language alive and well is enormously important, and urgent right now.

That is one reason we are embarking on making a documentary film entitled Faces of the Modern Maya. To explore this idea and press with urgency for the awareness that the Maya language is endangered. And yet there are so many people who are standing up to protect and preserve it, to keep it alive. We bow down to those individuals and seek to promote their endeavors through our film work. 

Be on the lookout for more content around the stories and actions of those who strive to keep the language and traditions alive for Maya people, and all indigenous people. We are excited to be a small part of exploring more these endeavors!

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