Haz clic aquí para leer la versión español

Strengthening Tojol-ab’al:

Adapting the Ojer Maya Ts’ib in Las Margaritas, Chiapas, 2019

The Thanksgiving holiday has arrived in the United States, and we want to wish everyone a safe and restful celebration with family and friends, as we give thanks to all of our resilient Maya colleagues for the excellent work they continue to do on behalf of their languages and cultures, amidst all of the many challenges they have faced—not the least of which continues to be the ongoing pandemic.

This month, as we await the reports from our recently funded online workshops, we again harken back to 2019 with a report from Omar Chan, who worked with the YAs. As we await reports from the several online workshops we have recently funded, we have another report from one of the last in-person workshops from 2019. This is now the last report we have from before the pandemic that we have received, but we wanted to be sure to share with you the good work of Avenamar Gómez López with the Tojol-ab’al students from Las Margaritas, Chiapas, Mexico, who are actively engaged in preserving their language through the inspiration of ancient Maya writing—Ojer Maya Ts’ib. In doing so, they have had to adapt the Classic Maya syllabary to their own language, which includes the phoneme /r/, which did not exist in the Classic script. Like many contemporary Maya speakers, they have chosen to modify some of the Classic syllabic glyphs to accommodate the phonemes in their languages.

We hope you enjoy this month’s report, and we give thanks to all of you who kindly support our ongoing work and the work of many Maya teachers and students. It is our profound hope that we may all finally and safely reunite next year for the next Congreso.

Tzachatal
Sincerely,

Michael Grofe, President
MAM

Continue reading →