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In the World: Murmurs of Mayan (MIT)
Along with its stunningly accurate calendar and majestic pyramidal
architecture, the Mayan civilization deserves recognition for another unique
feature: its language.
Mayan languages are a rich source of data for linguists aiming to develop a
universal theory of language, but like many of the world’s tongues, their
speakers are steadily dwindling in number. MIT undergraduate John Berman spent
the past summer in a remote village in Mexico studying Chol — a Mayan language
spoken in the southern state of Chiapas — in the hopes of capturing some
important features of its grammar and vocabulary. Working first with a team of
researchers led by Jessica Coon PhD ’10, and later for several weeks on his
own, Berman immersed himself in a Chol-speaking community to document and
understand some of the language’s unique attributes.
“With Native American languages, they’re dying fairly quickly — whole families
of languages, even,” Berman says. “It’s important to do this research now
before it’s too late.”
Berman, a junior majoring in linguistics and math, says his interest in
“underspoken languages” was kindled by studying Latin before coming to MIT,
and reinforced in linguistics classes here at the Institute. He worked
extensively with Coon, now an ...
MIT
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