Region and Speaker

Today, Mayan languages are spoken by more than six million people in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and (due to violence, diaspora, and land disposition) it is possible to locate Mayan speakers in communities in the USA and Canada. Six million people sound like a substantial number of speakers, but if we consider that the Mayan linguistic family has at least thirty-two different variants (Bennett et al 2015), the number decreases. For example, in Mexico the Mayan variants Huasteco (Teenek) in central Mexico, Lakantun (Lacandon) and Ch’ol spoken in Chiapas have relatively few speakers compared to the Yucatec variant.
Furthermore, if we compare the number of Mayan speakers against speakers of what is considered the national language, whether Spanish or English, the number decreases even more, and then we begin to see the need to revitalize or refunctionalize in order to bring the language back to its functioning state. The term refunctionalize is described by Mayan anthropologist and linguist, Dr. Briceño Chel. For him, revitalizing entails the acceptance that the language is in a decadent state, and Mayan peoples prefer not to see their language as unprotected. Therefore, Dr. Briceño Chel proposes the term refunctionalize, since it is the State’s obligation to ensure that all national languages are spoken in all social areas, from home, school, and, of course, in interaction with government institutions and to protect speakers of equally deserving communities (Briceño Chel 1012).
The highest concentration of Maya speakers is found in Guatemala, where between fifty and sixty percent of the total population are considered native Mayan speakers. K’iche’, Uspantek, Ixil, and Q’eqchi’ are the most popular languages spoken in Guatemala (England 2003). Outside of Guatemala, Mexico has the highest concentration of Maya speakers in Central America. Based on the 2020 census reported by INEGI (National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Informatics per its acronym in Spanish) 774,755 peoples speak Mayan Yucatec, of this number 398,124 are men, and 376,631 are women (INEGI), although there is a possibility that the female population is larger than what INEGI registers, due to the fact that Indigenous women in Mexico still endure higher levels of discrimination for being women, for being Indigenous, and for speaking an Indigenous language; therefore the number might not be reflecting all of the speakers. There has been, however, a decrease in the number of Mayan speakers in recent years. In the 2010 national census, INEGI registered a total of 795,499 Mayan speakers in Mexico. This means that in ten years the Mayan speaking population has lost 20,744 people (INEGI).
The Yucatec variant of the Mayan language is spoken mainly in the three Mexican states that make up the peninsula of Yucatan – Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. There is, however, intelligibility with Mayan languages in other countries; for example, Maya Itzáj in Belize, a highly endangered language that today registers less than 100 survivors, and that will most likely disappear in the next generations (Briceño Chel 2021, Palosaari 2011). There are other Mayan languages such as the Mocho variant that register a low index of speakers (Hofling 2000, Palosaari 2011), while, sadly, Ch’olti’ and Chicomuceltec are now considered extinct variants (Law 2014). 

Why is this considered a minority/ized language or culture?

Although Yucatec Mayan is the second most spoken Indigenous language in the Mexican republic, standing only behind Nahuatl with 1,651,958 speakers (INEGI), it has also experienced and continues to experience the loss of speakers. Honoring other languages included in this project, I will briefly mention a couple of historical movements that contributed to the loss of not only Mayan speakers, but also culture and identity.
There are a few reasons to account for the decrease of Mayan speakers in Mexico. Historically, colonization took its toll on all Indigenous Peoples, their cultures, and their languages in the Americas. The conquest of Yucatan was not an easy task; in this area, the conquest took longer than it did in Central Mexico, where the Spanish were only able to defeat the Aztec empire after establishing alliances with the Tlaxcaltecas and other Indigenous nations (Bravo 41). In comparison, the colonization of Mayan people was much more contended; in fact, some may say that Mayan people have continuously lived in resistance up until this very day. Mayan people are active in the reclamation of their right to language, identity, and territory (Velasquez Nimatuj 2016, Casañas 2021).
Francisco de Montejo arrived in Yucatan in 1527 and it took him nearly twenty years to conquer this area. During the conquest process, Mayan peoples responded with resistance and attacked the Spanish incursions on different occasions (Molina Solis 380-1). Mayan people were not scared to battle and defeated Spanish invasions multiple times until (after a number of battles) finally in 1547 the peninsula was completely under Spanish rule and under the influence of the Catholic Church (Molina Solis 837). While Mayan warriors were prepared to face the Spanish, they were not ready for the different sicknesses and epidemics brought to the Americas by the foreigners. After the conquest, there were smallpox, measles, intense labor, and sunstrokes. Many Indigenous people died due to these diseases (Molina Solis 219-22). Scholars estimate that, during this time, one in eight people died due to epidemic diseases in the Peninsula of Yucatan, adding up to approximately 65,000 deaths (Canto 52, Farraez 115-41, Malvido 111-70).
During the processes of conquest and colonization, Mayan people found themselves as production workers in a colonial system.  Another bloody episode, much less well known, was la Guerra de Castas, the Castle War (approximately between 1847-1901), where Mayan people again resisted colonization and land removal. During this time (although the Mayan population suffered important human losses and hunger), they were also in control of the jungle areas in eastern Yucatan, and they kept it until the end of the century. Mayan people were strong fighters and knew the jungle area quite well, which gave them an advantage over the Spanish people who had settled in towns. According to Nelson Reed, during la Guerra de Castas, white men and women fell prisoner and died as slaves, thus suffering the same fate that the Mayan people had before when their empires were reduced to working camps (Reed 9, Gonzalez 2006). Studies that analyze this movement tend to suggest that one of the main influences moving Mayan people to fight was the opportunity to have control over their natural resources, as well as their leaders’ negotiation skills to establish business with people (Gonzalez 2006). The constant battles between the army and the rebels, along with the spread of epidemics, weakened this movement that officially ended in 1901 under the presidency of Porfirio Díaz. Although, in reality many Indigenous rebels who took refuge in the mountains, la montaña, maintain their autonomy and are able to exercise their traditional jurisdiction. They have also been able to retain political and economic power in several municipalities of Quintana Roo; for example, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Tulum, and Solidaridad. In many ways, it is a war that was never concluded and that continues to this day. Many Mayans continue to live in resistance and prefer to work their own lands, to grow their traditional milpas rather than to give their work and time to a boss, a Dzul.
Pedro Bracamonte y Sosa, Mexican anthropologist and ethnohistorian, supports the principle that many Mayan people fled to la montaña to avoid suppression by the colonial system. According to Bracamonte, more than 30,000 people populated the mountain area (15) creating regions of emancipation where the colonial state could not enter. According to him the conquest was left unfinished considering that the Mayan population in the area was never fully converted under the colonial period. The establishment of emancipation regions gave Indigenous peoples the opportunity to reclaim their culture and ways of living and to implement their jurisdiction, and several Mayan peoples such as Itzaes, Mopanes, and Lacandones kept their position of autonomy, which does not represent the subjugation of an entire culture, but the fall of their capital region (Bracamonte y Sosa 2001).
Therefore, during the conquest and colonial time, Mayan culture, once considered one of the most influential civilizations in pre-Columbian history, experienced a decline in the number of speakers due to epidemics and battles. There are, however, side effects of colonization that continue to contribute to reduction of Indigenous speakers. In more recent times, the peninsula has experienced complex colonization processes aiming toward modernization and pushing for industrialization, renewable energy, and truisms. Many such projects involve the removal of Indigenous communities to exploit their land and natural resources. One of said projects is, indeed, the Mayan Train, a multimillion project designed, supposedly, to help Indigenous communities, but that Mayan people didn’t ask for or approve.