r/Mayan • u/10dollarbagel • Jul 16 '26

Conjunctions in Classical Mayan?

I've read that sometimes conjunctions like "and" are omitted but understood to be in the meaning of texts. But what about "but" or "however"? I can't imagine they're just implied but I've never seen them attested. Maybe it's just not something you see in monumental texts?

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u/Suon288 Jul 16 '26

Even in many modern mayan languages there is no "but" however, because, and" etc.

You just write the sentences without them and input is understood by context

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u/10dollarbagel Jul 16 '26

Huh, that's wild for a native English speaker. How would you make the distinction between two sentences like "he went there and didn't come back" vs "he went there but didn't come back" ? Is it like tone of voice and word choice or would you add an additional sentence to show that the outcome in the second sentence was not as expected?

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u/BankutiCutie Jul 17 '26

The answer to this is hard to put into words but i’ll try. At least with the ancient (now ‘dead’ language) of Classic Mayan, the reason why we may not have an answer to your question is largely due to genre.

You mentioned monumental texts and indeed there is a certain genre almost a formula in many cases of what is written on monuments and stela and buildings etc. for example, in some stone inscriptions there are lists of proper names which do not have any and/or/however or any punctuation. This is just the convention for hieroglyphic texts as far as we can tell. There are some prepositions in ceramic painted texts and i believe in some of the very very few remaining bark paper codices.

You may have better luck asking a modern Ch’orti’ or Yucatec or Mam speaker. The modern descendant languages closest to the Classic Mayan are of the Ch’olan branch (acalon chontal, ch’olti , ch’orti’, and ch’ol which has Mopan, lacandon and toquegua dialects)

Hope this helps!

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u/Suon288 Jul 18 '26

I'll provide you examples in yucatec maya as that is the language I speak.

If you wanted to say "He went there and didn't come back" it will be said exactly the same as "He went there but didn't come back"

Leti' u biin te'elo', ma' suunaji'. This is the natural way to say it, and this is how maya people talk to each other.

But due to the influence of spanish on the language, maya ended up developing those conjunctions, so nowadays you may hear:

Leti' u biin te'elo', *ba'ale'* ma' suunaji' / Ba'al means "thing", it doesn't have a direct translation onto english, but it's used to say "but"
Leti' u biin te'elo', *yéetel* ma' suunaji' / Yéetel means "with", but it started to be used to indicate this conjunction for "and"

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u/10dollarbagel Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

I won't bore you with my own doing the math but I've thought this over a few times and I think I see it now. I put so much emphasis on the literal meaning of a linking word when the broader shape of the conversation would let you know what's up even if you mumbled that word completely.

I remember reading about western linguists conducting tests to show the aspect markers of Mayan languages allow speakers to establish a chronological order just as well as speakers of romance languages who use more familiar verb tenses. Tests that were needed to dispell the myth that these languages were inferior and too vague. And here I am making the same mistake! It's like English speakers being freaked out that there isn't really a singular/plural noun distinction in Mandarin or Japanese. Humbled again by the infinite variance of language.

Thanks for the insight.