*Languages: Yucatec Maya, Spanish, Arabic
*Yucatec Maya: Spoken from the Yucatec Peninsula in Mexico to Belize. Spanish, spoken in Spain, Central America, and South America, Arabic, spoken in the Middle East and North Africa
Penélope is a home-schooled high-school senior from Texas. She is a NSLI-Y alumna for Arabic Summer 2019, Amideast Rabat, and is a current Arabic AY Semifinalist.
I was sequestered in a chilly Chicago flat, helping my parents to plan for an upcoming trip to the state of Yucatán in Mexico. I scoured the Internet, leafing through JSTOR for a copy of the Popol Wuj, for a history of Yucatec architecture. From reading about the sport of Pok ta Pok (or Mayan basketball) to studying the intricate funerary sculptures of Jaina island, I read along, immersing myself in the history of the beautiful Mayan State.
It was through this research that I came across the 1995 work A Very Short Itza Maya Vocabulary, compiled by Erik Boot. Due to my inclination towards linguistic research, I eagerly began to scroll through pages of Itza vocabulary, when I came upon two terms in particular that interested me.
aseeteh (S), /sub. -oil
asuukar (S), /sub. - sugar
I was taken aback. It was clear to me that these words must have been borrowed from their Spanish counterparts
aceite (N) -oil
azúcar (N) -sugar
But they also reflected the structure of the Arabic words,
زَيتُ/(zayt) (N)-oil
سُكْر/(sukkar) (N) -sugar
This lexicographical similarity was at once intriguing to me. Since watching the BBC show Connections in my childhood, nothing has pleased me more than finding connections between my interests. During a summer in Morocco through the NSLI-Y Scholarship (National Security Language Initiative for Youth), I noted a common Spanish influence between the Mexican culture I shared with my family and the new culture I was experiencing. This was linguistically manifested through terms in the Moroccan dialect Darija, such as “kuzina,” “bata,” and “skwilla,” which were derived during the Spanish Protectorate period in Morocco from the Spanish words “cocina,” “pato,” and “escuela” (denoting “kitchen,” “duck,” and “school,” respectively) — and also culturally manifested in the presence of familiar dishes, from paella to fideo, at the dinner table. And so I researched, to help myself better understand the exact path of vocabulary and ideologies from the Arab world to the Yucatán. This is what I found.
The Yucatec languages, which form the living ergative language family also known as Mayan, are spoken from the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico to Belize. This family is divided into two branches, Mopan-Itza and Yucatec Lancadon, both of which are characterized by their use of ejective consonants /p’/, /t’/, and /k’/, the absence of gender markers or a case system, and the use of contrastive laryngealization (or creaky voice) on long vowels.
Shortly following the arrival of explorers in the Yucatán in 1517, a massive conquest of the peninsula began. As conquistadors such as Francisco de Montejo II militarized and overtook indigenous areas, transforming Mayan cities into colonial towns and constructing new buildings from the bricks of Mayan temples in cities such as Mérida, they began an erasure of local traditions, religions, and attitudes in an attempt to evangelize and Europeanize the local people. Aside from introducing civic institutions and infrastructure and banning local practices, the Spanish understood that in order to control a culture, it is essential to control language and speech. As such, colonialists devised a process of social and linguistic homogenization through the alteration of local languages.
The result was a new register of Maya infused with Spanish vocabulary, with a lexicon intricately designed so as to suit the needs of Catholic practices such as prayer and confession. This register became known as Yucatec Reducido, from the Spanish word reducir, or “to reduce, reorganize, or convince.” Used to translate copies of the Bible and other works promoted by Spanish imperialists, this language was largely successful in the effort to eradicate Mayan ritual speech and induce Evangelization in the Yucatán. With time, the logosyllabic alphabet once used to record Mayan codices disappeared; the Roman alphabet appeared in its place. The Yucatec -ob suffix, once used to denote plurality, was overtaken by the Spanish -s and -es markers on a multiplicity of phrases. But most importantly, thousands of Spanish words were adopted into the language.
Arch in Valladolid, Yucatan; Arch in Sale, Morocco; Yucatec Temple (taken by Penélope Hurtado-Stuart)
In the period following the Mexican War of Independence in the early 19th century, the Yucatec people began to reclaim their forever-altered language. Yucatec, in its reducido form, became a symbol of ethnicity and resistance, used in cosmological practices and spoken as a celebration of cultural identity. To this day, the language lives on, as do the Spanish loanwords within it.
But why do many Spanish words, such as our examples above, appear to have Arabic cognates?
Following the Muslim Conquest of Hispania in 711 C.E. and continuing through the Umayyad, Almoravid, and Almohad periods, the area encompassing Spain and Portugal, then referred to as Al-Andalus, was under Islamic rule. During this period, Islamic and Arab influences not only affected the political climate and religious practices of the Andalusian area, but also all facets of culture. This included everything from academia (It was during this period that algebra was first brought to Spain); to architectural techniques, such as the introduction of the arch and the interior courtyard; to musical innovations, which later informed genres such as flamenco and facilitated the use of solfège in classical music; to the introduction of Aristotelian philosophy to the region. Chief among these cultural constituents was the adoption of Arabic loanwords into the Spanish vocabulary.
At the height of Arab influence in medieval Spain, lexicographers have noted the espousal of phrases such as إن شاء الله, (ʾin shāʾa llāh) (If god wills) into Spanish as Ojala (I hope). In contrast to the deliberate fabrication of Yucatec Reducido, linguists have argued that these words were borrowed not through the controlled decisions of the upper classes, but rather by everyday workers and marketplace shoppers in order to communicate and facilitate trade. This etymological history is made evident by the presence of the Arabic definite article Al- in most of these words, even when preceded by the Spanish definite articles, el, los, las, and la. As the Arabic definite article is invariable, unlike the gendered, strictly plural or singular articles of Spanish, it is thought that the ‘al’ sound was mistaken for part of the nominal root of many words. In various cases, as with ‘adobe’ (brick) and ‘acebibe’ (raisin), the ‘L’ has been assimilated so as to reflect the presence of ism shamsiyaa, or “sun words”: those in which the L sound in al has been omitted, due to a cacophonic effect when matched with the first letter of a noun. These words extend to some of the more commonly employed within the Spanish language, such as alcohol (alcohol), almohada (pillow), and albóndiga (meatball).
Knowing this, our initial examples better fit into the historical puzzle. Both oil and sugar are highly utilized in trade, particularly within colonial or post-colonial societies, where they have historically been objects of desire. However, neither word is integral enough to any early language to be present on a Swadesh list, a list that categorizes the 100 most commonly important words of any language. As such, both words in a language are easily influenced by those in power — by those in direct possession of oil or sugar. If introduced to a lexicon to the literate through writing, they are unlikely to change greatly, as is evident from the shift from the Spanish aceite to the Yucatec aseeteh. But if learned by ear, without being read, a greater shift is to be expected, as with the shift from the Arabic zayt to Spanish aceite.
And so, as I write this from the warmth of an Arabic-style courtyard in the beautiful state of Yucatán, the smells of Mayan cuisine and the rhythms of the local cantina surrounding me, I smile to think of the many similarities between the culture I am now experiencing and that which I experienced during my time in Morocco. In both countries, I have been welcomed by the warmth, energy, and history of the local people, surrounded by music and familiar dishes. In both countries, I have wandered through lively, crowded marketplaces with their tarp roofs and bustling sellers and fresh fruits and new leather goods. And in both countries, I have heard the sound of similar words. It reminds me that all cultures are in some way historically connected. No culture exists in a vacuum.
And as for me, I am never happier than when comparing and exploring each interwoven thread in the tapestry of cultures which encompasses the globe.
Meet the Writer
Attempting to weave a tapestry of cultures and expand her world, Texan home-schooled student Penélope Hurtado-Stuart is fascinated by anthropology, linguistics and foreign languages. She has studied Arabic, Spanish, French, and Japanese through her local community college and through the NSLI-Y program. Stuart is also a fan of 1970s minimalist opera and is enthusiastic about art, art history, and museum work.
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