Mayan language is still alive

In the state of Quintana Roo, 15 percent of the population speaks an indigenous language, a total of 198,587 people, but the Mayan population undergoes changes and transformations permanently in the search to survive and progress as year after year loses a large number of speakers.

This month eight students of Social Anthropology from Appalachian State University of North Carolina arrived to the University of Quintana Roo, they will be here six weeks learning the Mayan language under a communicative and functional approach since, said the rector of the university, the understanding of the local language it is of vital importance to any researcher or professional who wants to work in the Mayan communities of the region.

They will also study anthropological research methods, where students will acquire the necessary skills to conduct a field exploration, taking into account the professional ethics required to establish a respectful relationship with communities of a different cultural profile.

Students will also conduct a fieldwork stay in the Xiatil community. The program will have a total duration of 140 hours that will be done until the end of July and will consist of three phases.
In addition, as part of the program, they will visit different archaeological sites such as Kohunlich, Oxtankah, Coba and Chichen Itza.

It fills us with pride the fact that a civilization as important as it was the Mayan civilization can be known and studied directly in its inhabitants because in the south east of Mexico there are a lot of Mayan peoples who still preserve the ancestral traditions.