The Linguistic History of Mayan Year (*ha?ab')
Yucatecan speakers, co-bearers of Classic Maya culture with speakers of Cholan, innovated a label for year by combining their usual word for water (*ha?) with *-ab', a suffix which also denoted water. This produced a word for rainy season (*ha?ab', literally, water-water or, simply, much w...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1987
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| In: |
Anthropological linguistics
Year: 1987, Volume: 29, Issue: 4, Pages: 362-388 |
| IxTheo Classification: | NBE Anthropology |
| Further subjects: | B
Girard, René (1923-2015)
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Yucatecan speakers, co-bearers of Classic Maya culture with speakers of Cholan, innovated a label for year by combining their usual word for water (*ha?) with *-ab', a suffix which also denoted water. This produced a word for rainy season (*ha?ab', literally, water-water or, simply, much water) which acquired the meaning year through expansion of reference. The suffix *-ab' water, previously not recognized by Mayan linguists, has reflexes that occur as frozen constituents of several words, for example, ta?ab' salt, which originally was literally shit of (sea) water. The innovated year term diffused to nearly all languages of the Mayan family, probably in conjunction with the spread of aspects of Classic Maya calendrics, specifically the vague year of 365 days. The broad diffusion of both the lexical item and associated calendric knowledge probably occurred mainly after the collapse of Classic Maya civilization and, possibly, as a result of events stimulated by the collapse. |
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| ISSN: | 1944-6527 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Anthropological linguistics
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