The world ends one year from now, according to apparent Maya forecasts… In a break with flights of fancy, this week we’re off to Guatemala and Mexico to discover the quite alive Maya people, centuries after colonization, and explore their languages, battling to avoid extinction.

Blog

Linguistic anthropology researcher Valentina Vapnarsky brings us an invigorating article – Enough with keeping the Maya locked in their pyramids! describing the Maya’s constant ability to renew themselves, as well as the long-lasting discriminations that remain, particularly in Mexico, despite actual progress in legislation.

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Video

How do you say I’m cold, I’m hungry… or I love you in Kaqchikel, one the Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala? That’s what you’re about to learn in this week’s video on common expressions in Kaqhickel.

Soropedia

A good number of language description sheets out of the thirty or so languages included in the Mayan family: Ch’ol, Chontal, Chuj, Ch’orti’, Lakantun, Yukateko Mayan, Mopan, Popti, Q’anjobal, Wasteko, as well as Kaqchikel and Tektiteko, two languages filmed by Sorosoro in 2009, and both the subject of several of our videos online.

Videos in Kaqchikel

Videos in Tektiteko

Other videos this week

Spanish subtitled videos just keep coming in! Here are a few of them in Baynunk language from Casamance, Senegal: 4 incredible animal tales, a manioc leaf-based fish sauce recipe, and a few songs by a group of highly energized women.

Save the date

News

November 17, 2011: Aboriginal Seediq language-directed Taiwanese film Warriors of the Rainbow released in Hong Kong – hope for the foreign-language Oscar race!

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November 26, 2011: Centro Academico y Cultural San Pablo opens to promote indigenous languages of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico

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Agenda

December 12-14, 2011: Conference on “sustainable data from digital fieldwork”, University of Melbourne, Australia

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Word of the fortnight

The word of the fortnight is TWO and there is still time for contributions! Get set… ?

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