#IndigenousLanguages #MexicanLanguages
Many indigenous #Mexican languages use the so-called “numeral classifiers” - similar to those existing in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese - which convey the form, position or nature of the counted object. The chart below shows some of the (still) used numeral classifiers in #Yucatec #MayaLanguage, although many of them are often replaced by two general markers: “túul” for animate nouns and “p’éel” for inanimate objects.
@linguistics #Mexicanlanguages
Many #Mexican languages are #tonal (particularly the #Otomanguean #languages of the State of #Oaxaca and Central #Mexico). Out of 32 different #Maya languages, only 3 or 4 have developed tone as a fixed characteristic, the most prominent one being #Yucatec Maya, spoken by 800,000 people in the #Yucatan Peninsula. Yucatec Maya has different vowel qualities (short, long, reaticulated and glottalized) but only long vowels are affected by tone as shown below:
Comparison of #numbers between #Yucatec #Maya (Maaya t'aan) and #Huastec (Tének), spoken in North-Eastern Mexico. Huastec is the only Mayan language found outside the core Mayan region (South #Mexico, #YucatanPeninsula, #Guatemala, #Belize & #Honduras). Geographically speaking Huastec is more than 800 kms. away from its closest related #languages.
