Yucatec Maya language in the context of Mayan languages

A Study of History is a 12-volume universal history by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, published from 1934 to 1961. It received enormous popular attention but according to historian Richard J. Evans, "enjoyed only a brief vogue before disappearing into the obscurity in which it has languished". Toynbee's goal was to trace the development and decay of 19 or 21 world civilizations in the historical record, applying his model to each of these civilizations, detailing the stages through which they all pass: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration.

The 19 (or 21) major civilizations, as Toynbee sees them, are: Egyptian, Andean, Sumerian, Babylonic, Hittite, Minoan, Indic, Hindu, Syriac, Hellenic, Western, Orthodox Christian (having two branches: the main or Byzantine body and the Russian branch), Far Eastern (having two branches: the main or Chinese body and the Japanese-Korean branch), Islamic (having two branches which later merged: Arabic and Iranic), Mayan, Mexican and Yucatec. Moreover, there are three "abortive civilizations" (Abortive Far Western Christian, Abortive Far Eastern Christian, Abortive Scandinavian) and five "arrested civilizations" (Polynesian, Eskimo, Nomadic, Ottoman, Spartan), for a total of 27 or 29.

The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of Europeans. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now extinct. The Indigenous languages of the Americas are not all related to each other; instead, they are classified into a hundred or so language families and isolates, as well as several extinct languages that are unclassified due to the lack of information on them.

Many proposals have been made to relate some or all of these languages to each other, with varying degrees of success. The most widely reported is Joseph Greenberg's Amerind hypothesis, which, however, nearly all specialists reject because of severe methodological flaws; spurious data; and a failure to distinguish cognation, contact, and coincidence.

During the pre-Columbian era, human sacrifice in Maya culture was the ritual offering of nourishment to the gods and goddesses. Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering. By extension, the sacrifice of human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Maya rituals culminated in human sacrifice. Generally, only high-status prisoners of war were sacrificed, and lower status captives were used for labor.

Human sacrifice among the Maya is evident from at least the Classic period (c. AD 250–900) right through to the final stages of the Spanish conquest in the 17th century. Human sacrifice is depicted in Classic Maya art, is mentioned in Classic period glyph texts and has been verified archaeologically by analysis of skeletal remains from the Classic and Postclassic (c. AD 900–1524) periods. Additionally, human sacrifice is described in a number of late Maya and early Spanish colonial texts, including the Madrid Codex, the Kʼicheʼ epic Popol Vuh, the Kʼicheʼ Título de Totonicapán, the Kʼicheʼ language Rabinal Achi, the Annals of the Kaqchikels, the Yucatec Songs of Dzitbalche and Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán.

William Edmond Gates (December 8, 1863 – April 24, 1940) was an American Mayanist. Most of his research focused around Mayan language hieroglyphs. He also collected Mesoamerican manuscripts. Gates studied Mayan-based languages like Yucatec Maya, Ch'olti', Huastec and Q'eqchi'. Biographies state that he could speak at least 13 languages. Works and archives related to Gates reside in the collections of Brigham Young University.

The Yucatecan languages form a branch of the Mayan family of languages, comprising four languages, namely, Itzaj, Lacandon, Mopan, and Yucatec. The languages are presently extant in the Yucatán Peninsula, encompassing Belize, northern Guatemala, and southeastern Mexico.

Wayob is the plural form of way (or uay), a Maya word with a basic meaning of 'sleep(ing)', but which in Yucatec Maya is a term specifically denoting the Mesoamerican nagual, that is, a person who can transform into an animal while asleep in order to do harm, or else the resulting animal transformation itself. Already in Classic Maya belief, way animals, identifiable by a special hieroglyph, had an important role to play.

Chetumal (UK: /ˌtʃɛtʊˈmɑːl/, US: /ˌtʃeɪtuˈ-/, Spanish: [tʃetuˈmal] ; Yucatec Maya: Chactemàal [tɕʰaktʰe̞mɐː˨˩l], lit. '"Place of the Red Wood"') is a city on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. It is the capital of the state of Quintana Roo and the municipal seat of the Municipality of Othón P. Blanco. In 2020 it had a population of 169,028 people.

The city is situated on the western side of Chetumal Bay, near the mouth of the Río Hondo. Chetumal is an important port for the region and operates as Mexico's main trading gateway with the neighboring country of Belize. Goods are transported via a road connecting Chetumal with Belize City to the south, and also via coastal merchant ships. There is a commercial airport, Chetumal International Airport, with airline service. Because of its location on the Caribbean coastline, it is vulnerable to tropical cyclones; Hurricane Janet and Hurricane Dean, both Category 5 storms, made landfall near Chetumal in 1955 and 2007 respectively.

Palenque (Spanish pronunciation: [pa'leŋke]; Yucatec Maya: Bàakʼ [ɓaːkʼ]), also anciently known in the Itza Language as Lakamha ("big water" or "big waters"), was a Maya city-state in southern Mexico that perished in the 8th century. The Palenque ruins date from ca. 226 BC to ca. 799 AD. After its decline, it was overgrown by the jungle of cedar, mahogany, and sapodilla trees, but has since been excavated and restored. It is located near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, about 130 km (81 mi) south of Ciudad del Carmen, 150 meters (490 ft) above sea level. It is adjacent to the modern town of Palenque, Chiapas. It averages a humid 26 °C (79 °F) with roughly 2,160 millimeters (85 in) of rain a year.

Palenque is a medium-sized site, smaller than Tikal, Chichen Itza, or Copán, but it contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, roof comb and bas-relief carvings that the Mayas produced. Much of the history of Palenque has been reconstructed from reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the many monuments; historians now have a long sequence of the ruling dynasty of Palenque in the 5th century and extensive knowledge of the city-state's rivalry with other states such as Calakmul and Toniná. The most famous ruler of Palenque was Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal, or Pacal the Great, whose tomb has been found and excavated in the Temple of the Inscriptions. By 2005, the discovered area covered up to 2.5 km (0.97 sq mi), but it is estimated that less than 10% of the total area of the city is explored, leaving more than a thousand structures still covered by jungle. Palenque received 920,470 visitors in 2017.

San Francisco de Campeche (pronounced [saɱ fɾanˈsisko ðe kamˈpetʃe]; Yucatec Maya: Ahk'ìin Pech, pronounced [aχkʼiːn˥˧ pʰetʃ]), 19th c., also known simply as Campeche, is a city in Campeche Municipality in the Mexican state of Campeche, on the shore of the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico. Both the seat of the municipality and the state's capital, the city had a population of 220,389 in the 2010 census, while the municipality had a population of 259,005.

The city was founded in 1540 by Spanish conquistadores as San Francisco de Campeche atop the pre-existing Maya city of Can Pech. Little trace remains of the Pre-Columbian city.

Mérida (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmeɾiða] ; Yucatec Maya: Joꞌ) is the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán, and the largest city in southern Mexico. The city is also the seat of the eponymous municipality. It is located slightly inland from the northwest corner of the Yucatán Peninsula, about 35 km (22 mi) from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In 2020, it had a population of 921,770 while its metropolitan area, which also includes the cities of Kanasín and Umán, had a population of 1,316,090.

Mérida is also the cultural and financial capital of the Yucatán Peninsula. The city's rich cultural heritage is a product of the syncretism of the Maya and Spanish cultures during the colonial era. The Cathedral of Mérida, Yucatán was built in the late 16th century with stones from nearby Maya ruins and is the oldest cathedral in the mainland Americas. The city has the third largest old town district on the continent. It was the first city to be named American Capital of Culture, and the only city that has received the title twice.

The Congress of the State of Campeche (Spanish: Congreso del Estado de Campeche, Yucatec Maya: u Noj Mola’ayil u Péetlu’umil Kaampech) is the legislature of Campeche, a state of Mexico. The Congress is unicameral. The legislature was established on 2 March 1861.

Sistema Sac Actun (Yucatec Maya: sak aktun, lit. 'white cave', Spanish: sistema, lit. 'system') is an underwater cave system situated along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula with passages to the north and west of the city of Tulum. Discovery of a connection to Sistema Dos Ojos in 2018 made it the longest known underwater cave system. As of January 2023, it is the second longest underwater cave system in the world, only surpassed by Sistema Ox Bel Ha.

The remains of a mastodon and a human female that might be the oldest evidence of human habitation in the Americas have been found in the cave.

Tinum Municipality (Yucatec Maya: "crippled numtzutzuy") is a municipality in the Mexican state of Yucatán containing 393.44 km (151.91 sq mi) of land and is located roughly 140 kilometres (87 mi) east of the city of Mérida.

The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, before the arrival of Europeans. Over a thousand of these languages are still used in the 21st century, while many more are now extinct. The Indigenous languages of the Americas are not all related to each other; instead, they are classified into a hundred or so language families and isolates, as well as several extinct languages that are unclassified due to the lack of information on them.

Many proposals have been made to relate some or all of these languages to each other, with varying degrees of success. The most widely reported is Joseph Greenberg's Amerind hypothesis; however, nearly all specialists reject it because of severe methodological flaws; spurious data; and a failure to distinguish cognation, contact, and coincidence.

Cozumel (Spanish pronunciation: [kosuˈmel]; Yucatec Maya: Kùutsmil) is an island and municipality in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen. It is separated from the mainland by the Cozumel Channel and is close to the Yucatán Channel. The municipality is part of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

In 2023, Cozumel was designated a Pueblo Mágico by the Mexican government, recognizing its cultural and historical importance.

Open o or turned c (majuscule: Ɔ, minuscule: ɔ) is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it represents the open-mid back rounded vowel. It is used in the orthographies of many African languages using the African reference alphabet.

The Yucatec Maya language used Ɔ to transcribe the alveolar ejective affricate [t͡sʼ] consonant in the orthography of the Colonial period. Now dz or tsʼ is preferred.

Chicxulub Pueblo (Yucatec Maya: Ch’ik Xulub, Mayan pronunciation: [t͡ʃʼik ʃuluɓ]) is a town, and surrounding municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Yucatán.

At the census of 2010, the town had a population of 4,080 people.