This is kind of weird but my mother, who spends several months a year in the Yucatan, has decided that she’s made an important discovery about the Mayan language. I’ve been having a hard time convincing her that the modern Mayan language has been influenced by exposure to spanish and to other languages through spanish (particularly arabic and aramaic). Anyone know of a good book I could send her that would convince her that she is wasting her time?
You sound like kind of an asshole son here, Sarkus.
Given that she’s trying to prove a very radical theory and she has no expertise on the subjects involved, all I’m trying to do is make sure she has a better understanding of what she’s doing.
If that makes me an asshole, so be it.
While you may have a point that the modern mayan language could be influenced by spanish, etc. you don’t really know that; you’re making an assumption. On the other hand your mother spends a great deal of time down there.
I’ve been to the Yucatan, to some very out of the way places, spent a little time, not a lot. The mayan language is definitely alive and well.
Why not humor us. In a nutshell, what is your mom going on about?
She thinks mayan is related to aramaic, the ancient language that was the predecessor of hebrew and was widely used in the ancient middle east. It’s also the language thought likely to have been used by Jesus. This would be quite contrary to current historical views.
Her evidence is that she says there are some words in mayan that are the same as words in aramaic. She only knows aramaic through one book and mayan only through her visits to the Yucatan the past few years. She doesn’t know much spanish either. I pointed out that it was possible that the modern mayan language has been influenced by spanish and that some aramaic words could have entered spanish via phoenician and arabic influences on spain (both those languages are related to aramaic.)
I wouldn’t care but she wants to spend a lot of time and money on chasing this idea. She also asked me to find books on the languages involved.
Is your Mom Mormon by chance?
I was wondering that myself.
But a good scientist.
From my limited understanding of the field, ancient Mayan is a pretty well known language by epigraphers.
A quick review of Wikipedia confirms both that assumption and yours that the various Mayan languages are significantly influenced by Spanish (btw, that link goes to a kinda cool website that catalogues languages of the world).
As for books, I’m not such a great source (not that the above took much in skill). Latin? Greek? No problem. Mayan? Eh. I’d suggest checking out the reference section in Wiki, as well.
Oh, and just taking a stab as to the source of her newfound curiosity if she isn’t Mormon: you might want to tell her that the Celestine Prophecies and Mel Gibson are both fine … for entertainment purposes only, if you can stomach the significant problems with each.
Heh. No, she’s not mormon and she might be offended if I said she was. :-)
The Celestine Prophecy is an interesting angle since I know she’s read it as she gave me a copy (which I’ve never read).
She’s got these grandiose ideas about her “discovery.” When I suggested she talk to an expert to see what they said, she refused, saying that she’s was afraid they would “steal the discovery.” So, I convinced her that a lot more research is necessary despite her convictions and she agreed to read any books I could find that discuss the various languages involved.
I’m hoping I can find something on the history of the Mayan language that would convince her that her “evidence” is at best an artifact of the influence of other languages. Five hundred years of spanish influences has likely tainted modern Mayan enough that words common to ancient middle eastern languages would have to be viewed as likely recent additions rather than proof of an ancient connection. Plus, both Mayan and Aramaic have been well studied so it seems unlikely that a connection would have been missed.
It used to be a fad among linguists to claim that 2 languages had common roots based on words that the two languages had in common. (or were very similar)
After commonalities became apparent among all sorts of unlikely languages, linguists took a step back & realized that there are only a finite number of sounds that the human mouth can form. Just based on the laws of probabilities, any two languages are extremely likely to share several words. Because the human mind (especially a mind on a mission) likes to find pattern & meaning, we are inclined to make up stories in order to explain these apparent commonalities. However, stories is all they are unless you have a firm grounding in the history of the languages and its people, as well as a very good feel the languages in question.
Looking at the wikipedia article on the Mayan languages, it appears that linguists have reconstructed a pretty clear history of the Mayan languages, and so if she was serious about her discoveries, she would go to a form of the languages before Spanish influence & try to find commonalities then. And even then, she has to explain how these commonalities arose, rather than being sounds that are similar because of chance.
Exactly. Instead she’s basing it on what current speakers are telling her certain words mean. Before I mentioned looking to see if some words were also similar to the spanish, she hadn’t even considered that.
As I said, she has no expertise or knowledge in any of the languages involved. I’m not even sure how she is connecting spoken aramaic to spoken mayan, given her knowledge of spoken aramaic is based on what a book has told her in terms of pronunciation, and it’s not a book designed to teach her the language to begin with. Instead, it’s a book that deals with using aramaic to study biblical passages.
I also had to explain to her the difference between aramaic being a language with an alphabet for writing versus the ancient mayans use of hieroglyphics. She didn’t understand the difference between those two forms of written language.
I read off your post to my archaeologist and linguist girlfriend. I will not repeat her unkind words on the subject. It should be noted that she got very, very angry at 10,000 BC, so, you know, she can be a little crazy about this sort of thing. She did, however, offer up Reading the Maya Glyphs for some history on the language and how modern linguists were able to figure out the language. Lost Languages covers just what you’d think, and has a chapter that covers the decipherment of the Mayan language. And The Story of Writing which is basically the journey of writing and language throughout the ages, along with its companion The Story of Decipherment which is about figuring out the languages, including Mayan and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Both Lost Languages and The Story of Writing cover how languages change to a degree that they give birth to new languages. It’s unlikely there is a chapter called ‘Jesus Did Not Teach The Mayan Civilization About God’, but they might help.
One of my English professors - sadly dead now, so I can’t ask him - studied mayan languages intensively and had a few books published (when he published the first, we asked him if he wanted to go visit those mayans since he probably knew their language better than them and he answerred “No, I’m a computer man”).
Unfortunately he was one of my linguistics professors in English, so I don’t know a lot of details about his research and books on mayan language.
But the university keeps up a database, so perhaps there’s info or at least a bibliography for you to go on from there.
Get her something by David Icke.
Better get that book fast - only 4 years left to learn.
<insert manic laughter>
Four years, seven months, twelve days. :)
Aramaic!?
So, did she find the Holy Grail in the Castle of Auuuugggghhhh, or what?
The idea that the Mayans are descended from the lost tribes of Israel is as old as their discovery. Europeans couldn’t believe that non-whites had created such advanced monuments. Therefore, missing members of their own cultural tradition had to be responsible. The other popular choice was, no surprise, Atlantis. Both ideas have been debunked over and over and over again, but refuse to die.
Last I checked neither Israelis nor Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese and other old world city builders qualify as “white Europeans”. So if you think the Mayans were considered emigrated Jews to place them in some “cultural tradition” you’d have to believe that China sprang from the Bible, too.
I’m sure some extreme Christian sects (today probably found in America rather than Europe) believe exactly that, but maybe it’s more worthwhile to consider a real argument instead of bashing Europeans for what they might have thought 500 years ago.
Since most (all?) city-building cultures in the Old World originated in the fertile crescent and spread over vast distances, it seems reasonable to at least examine the possibility that some seed of this culture was also responsible for similar cultures in the New World.
That’s not to say that the Mayans are in fact a lost tribe of Israel. But the general concept of ancient culture spreading on a vast scale is not crazy – it’s the established model for Asia, Africa and Europe.