The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG (English: ''Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages'') is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 22

Mayan languages The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...

spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended particular efforts on standardising the various writing systems used. Another of its functions is to promote Mayan culture, which it does by providing courses in the country's various Mayan languages and by training Spanish-Mayan interpreters. It was founded on 16 November 1990 as an autonomous state organization, following publication of the ''Ley de la Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala'', which had been passed by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

the previous October. It is headquartered in

Guatemala City Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...

's Zone 10, in what was formerly the official residence of the

Minister of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

at the time of the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, during which the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

pursued a policy of

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

against the country's indigenous

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...

population.

Orthography

The ALMG have developed the most widely used orthographies for the Mayan languages. The Mayan languages in Mexico use different orthographies developed by INALI. For the languages that make a distinction between palato-alveolar and

retroflex A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...

affricates and fricatives (Mam, Ixil, Tektitek, Awakatek, Qʼanjobʼal, Poptiʼ, and Akatek in Guatemala, and Yucatec in Mexico) the ALMG suggests the following set of conventions.

Notes

References

*French, Brigittine. 2004. The politics and semiotics of sounds – Mayan linguistics and nation-building in Guatemala. ''Collegium Antropologicum'' 28, Supplement 1:249–255. *Fischer, E. F., & Brown, R. M. (Eds.). (2010). Maya cultural activism in Guatemala. University of Texas Press. *Rostica, J. C. (2007). Las organizaciones mayas de Guatemala y el diálogo intercultural. Política y cultura, (27), 75–97. *England, N. C. (2003). Mayan language revival and revitalization politics: Linguists and linguistic ideologies. American anthropologist, 105(4), 733–743. :The original version of this article was translated, with adaptations, from th
corresponding article
on the Spanish Wikipedia, Spanish-language Wikipedia.

External links

Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala
official website {{Authority control Cultural organizations based in Guatemala Mayan languages Language regulators Mesoamerican studies