A Dictionary of the Maya Language: As Spoken in Hocaba, Yucatan

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, but not easily decipherable
Review: I bought this book on the basis of the one review listed. As a frequent traveler to the Yucatan Peninsula, I wanted to learn more about the Mayan Language. Prospective buyers should know: The book is ONLY Mayan followed by the English translation and not vice versa. The author uses a number of arcane symbols to represent unique sounds in the Mayan language. While a professional linguist may understand "glottal stop" and other phrases, these are not readily decipherable by a layman. The entries are quasi-alphabetical, by their SOUND, not spelling. This makes it extremely difficult to locate a written word (say from a map or other book using familiar letters and characters) in the order of entries (which is by sound and ! # ? characters representing sounds). The description and book jacket mentions the inclusion of many interesting phrases and sentences that colorfully bring new light to the Mayan language. I have leafed through the book repeatedly in attempts to locate some of these (other than the ones mentioned on the cover) and have been unable to do so. The book contains very little narrative and what is written is more suited for a linguist, an anthropologist or doctoral students. This is not a book easily digested by tourists, business travelers or the casually interested armchair archeologist. Because I'm not more qualified than those folks, I'm not able to evaluate the quality of scholarship/research this book represents.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, but not easily decipherable
Review: If you have any interest in the modern or ancient Maya, in Maya archaeology or the Maya inscriptions, you should buy his book! This is the only substantial dictionary of the modern Yucatec Maya language. All the other published dictionaries are either very limited in scope or contain mostly "Classical" (16th century) Yucatec. The authors' scholarship is unparalleled. This is an *authoritative* work and will always remain so. The very complete section on grammar is invaluable, since there is almost nothing similar; works like Tozzer's "May Grammar" are outdated, incorrect and incomplete. Andrew Hofling's recent Itza Maya dictionary is an excellent work too, but is organized differently and is, of course, about a different language. I use this reference book and recommend it very highly to others.

Rating:
Summary: The *only* comprehensive modern Yucatec Maya dictionary!
Review: If you have any interest in the modern or ancient Maya, in Maya archaeology or the Maya inscriptions, you should buy his book! This is the only substantial dictionary of the modern Yucatec Maya language. All the other published dictionaries are either very limited in scope or contain mostly "Classical" (16th century) Yucatec. The authors' scholarship is unparalleled. This is an *authoritative* work and will always remain so. The very complete section on grammar is invaluable, since there is almost nothing similar; works like Tozzer's "May Grammar" are outdated, incorrect and incomplete. Andrew Hofling's recent Itza Maya dictionary is an excellent work too, but is organized differently and is, of course, about a different language. I use this reference book and recommend it very highly to others.

Rating:
Summary: Yucatec Maya Dictionary
Review: This is an excellent 408-page dictionary compiled by native speakers of the Maya language. The entries are detailed, illustrating different noun and verb forms, and many have sample sentences. There is a pronounciation guide and a good grammatical overview included. The dictionary is extremely comprehensive but is Maya-to-English only (you cannot look up a Mayan word and find its English meaning) and lists entries by only one of Maya's two modern alphabet systems (you cannot look up a Mayan word spelled in the "colonial" alphabet, instead you must use an alphabet translator located at the front of the book). Clearly including English-to-Maya and colonial-spelling-to-English sections would have been impossible for length reasons, but I wish they had published a second volume with that information in it; I would have purchased both.

Readers looking for a less comprehensive phrasebook from which to learn a few words of the language for conversational purposes should try ISBN# 0292708122 or 0781808596 instead. Readers interested in the ancient Mayan writing system (hieroglyphs) should try ISBN# 0781808626. This is an excellent dictionary but doesn't serve either of those other purposes well.