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AREAL SHIFTS IN CLASSIC MAYAN PHONOLOGY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2015

Danny Law ,
John Robertson ,
Stephen Houston ,
Marc Zender  and
David Stuart
Danny Law*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, B5100, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
John Robertson
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics (Emeritus), 2113-B JKHB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602
Stephen Houston
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Box 1921, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912
Marc Zender
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 101 Dinwiddie Hall, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118
David Stuart
Affiliation:
Department of Art and Art History, D1300, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
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Abstract

Advances in hieroglyphic decipherment and in language contact typology provide new data and theories with which to investigate and reassess prior interpretations of Mayan linguistic history. The present study considers the shift from proto-Mayan *k and *k' to /ch/ and /ch'/, a sound change that affected several Mayan languages in different phonological contexts. This sound change, with a very particular set of conditions, has been highlighted as a defining feature of the Cholan-Tseltalan branch of the Mayan language family. New evidence suggests that this sound change was shared as a result of contact around the time of the Classic period, rather than reflecting an inherited sound change that would have taken place at a much earlier stage of the language family. Hieroglyphic data provide further evidence that this sound change was adopted in the hieroglyphic language in a word-by-word fashion, rather than applying to all similar phonological contexts at the same time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Fall 2014 , pp. 357 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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