Re: NATLANG: Maya pronunciation guide

Andreas Johansson wrote at 2005-06-14 21:15:49 (+0200)

 > I'm reading David Webster's _The Fall of the Ancient Maya_, and
 > wondering how to pronounce the various Mayan names occuring in
 > it. Does anyone have a handy pronunciation guide, or the
 > willingness to summarize the essentials?
 >
 > (In case there's multiple orthographies around, they spell the name
 > of the last king of Copan as K'uhul Ajaw Yax Pasaj Chan Yoaat.)
 >
 >                                                      Andreas

There are some on this list with a better knowledge of Maya
linguistics than be, but I'll have a go.  There have been a number of
different orthographies - that's a modern one, which uses <w> instead
of <u>, and <'> for the glottalised series instead of different
letters (e.g. <k> rather than <c> for /k/ and <k'> rather than <k> for
/k_>/).

Vowels are pretty much as you might guess, <x> is /S/ or thereabouts,
<ch> is /tS/.  If we're talking about the classic language, I think
<j> is /x/ and <h> is /h/, but the distinction collapsed later.  Some
epigraphers don't distinguish them - I don't know enough about this
issue, but it doesn't matter too much if you just want to get a rough
pronunciation.  Stress is mostly final.  Vowel length is phonemic.

See pages 4 & 5 of this document for a better description of what
looks like basically the same system:
http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/vocabulary/Vocabulary.pdf

Some of the following might also be useful:

http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/orthography.htm
http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/syllabary_a.htm
http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/syllabary_b.htm
http://www.pauahtun.org/MayanGlyphs/orthography.html
http://www.vjf.cnrs.fr/celia/FichExt/Am/A_19-20_39.pdf

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