Talk:Chichen Itza

"Chichén wierd" or "Chichen Itza"?

I generally appreciate the work people have been doing about changing and moving Spanish language terms and articles to their properly accented forms. However, I'm much less enthusiastic about the changing of Mesoamerican names to such forms, especially in the case of Maya language names. The accenting of sylables has generally consistent rules in Maya, they are just different from those in Spanish. I think I had it right in my earlier version of the article when I named the site "Chichen Itza (Chichén Itzá in the Spanish language)". The site needs no special accent marks in Maya and is more often than not without them in English language print. I note that the Corpus of Maya Inscriptions, in both English and Spanish text, as official policy does not use the Spanish style accent marks for Maya names. I suggest we adopt a similar policy. I am therefore tempted to move this article back to Chichen Itza... but wish for others interested to discuss this matter before making a decision. -- Infrogmation 15:59, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

For the reasons above, I will move the article back to Chichen Itza in a few days if there are no objections. -- Infrogmation 16:31, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I am no expert, but your scheme makes sense to me, so in absence of more authoritative reply, I would say go ahead. Perhaps you could add the above explanation to a help page like Wikipedia: Naming conventions for future reference. -- Viajero

I mentioned it on Wikipedia talk: Naming conventions. -- Infrogmation 21:55, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think you're right, too. The next step would be to tackle Cuauhtémoc, Cuitláhuac, et al., which don't really need accents in English, either. Following that through to its logical conclusion, you'd have the monument to Cuauhtemoc in Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, and the Teotihuacan pyramids in Teotihuacán municipality. It's a fair amount of work, but logically coherent. – Hajor 19:56, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Some of those I think may well be more problematic. I'd like to just argue for Maya ruins with Maya names at present. I'm not familiar enough with other Mesoamerican native languages to suggest any policy on non-Maya names. -- Infrogmation 21:55, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No, I don't agree. You don't get an English name by removing the accents. And the Mayas themselves obviously had an entirely different script, which we can hardly use here. The original transcription is in Spanish, and that's what we have to use. There is no separate English version. I don't see any reason for a different treatment of Cuauhtémoc and Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua. --Wik 20:33, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

I am not arguing for Cuauhtémoc etc, which may well be a different case. More narrowly, I would like to forgo accent marks for Maya ruins with Maya names, however. Maya is still a living language in everyday use and has been written in Latin characters since the 16th century. As to English, I see "Chichen Itza", "Chichen-Itza" and "Chichen" in the earliest published descriptions. "Chichen Itza" has been more common in English language publications, including scholarly ones, since (although I certainly conceed that there is a notable minority that uses the Spanish style "Chichén Itzá"). The Corpus of Maya Inscriptions is the standard modern scholarly work referred to by students of the Pre-Columbian Maya; I think their policy of adhering to Spanish language accenting rules for Spanish language names and Maya language rules for Maya language names makes sense. Also, I note in a google search (no language preferences), "Chichen Itza" gets 102,000 hits, while "Chichén Itzá" gets 19,500 hits. Do you object to my proposed move in this specific case of Chichén/Chichen? Cheers, -- Infrogmation 21:31, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It goes for just about any accented place name that a Google search will find more hits without accents since most people writing in English simply ignore all diacritics, but that is not what we do here. However, if it's written without accents in modern Maya language, it might be acceptable. --Wik 22:24, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for having confused the issue with Nahuatl personal names when we were talking about Maya place names. I'll have to agree to disagree with Wik about Cuauhtémoc – the diacritical on that word is a Spanish one, to help the pronunciation in Spanish; it's not a Nahuatl one (which, after all, doesn't use diacritics when written in Latin characters), and it certainly doesn't help in any way in English. Just because the name entered other European languages by means of a Spanish adaptation ("Cuauhtémoc" from "Cuauhtemotzin", wasn't it?) doesn't mean that en, fr, de and the rest should observe the rules of Spanish orthography. But I'm digressing, and I know from past experience that I'm in a minority on this point... Infrogmation, I agree with the page move. –Hajor 03:09, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that the move is a good one. One needs to consider the purpose of accents in Spanish. They let the reader know that the stressed syllable is not where we would expect it. Without the accent the tendency for both English and Spanish speakers would be to pronounce "Chichen" with a stress on the first syllable. The accent is an aid to pronunciation. ☮ Eclecticology 10:22, 2004 Jan 21 (UTC)

I'm moving it back to "Chichen Itza". I mention "Chichén Itzá" in the first sentence of the text. -- Infrogmation 23:44, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I guess I thought I was putting in the Spanish name with proper accents, and patting myself on the back to boot! But it looks like you're looking at the ruins in terms of its Mayan origins. Is that why you don't care for the Spanish accents? (In any case, I bow to your superior expertise; I'm just asking ... :-) --Uncle Ed 14:31, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You were correct Ed, but it's hard to confront the forces of ignorant anglocentrism. They seem to have made a stand on this item but if you look at the links in Yucatán (sic!) they are terribly inconsistent. Eclecticology 17:21, 2004 Mar 26 (UTC)

"Ignorant anglocentrism"? I thought it was an anti-imperial indigenist stance we were taking. –Hajor 18:20, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Heh, I wasn't trying to promote any particular lingistic-centric adgenda. I thought the standard of the scholarly reference work Corpus of Maya Heiroglyphic Inscriptions that Spanish language names of Maya sites should be rendered as in Spanish and Maya language names of Maya sites should be rendered as in Maya made sense. -- Infrogmation 18:39, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I wish I knew who you were trying to insult, so we could fight about this! Who are you calling sic anyway, you Chichen?! ;-) (Get it? "It's a chicken" = "Chichen Itza", Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!). --Uncle Ed 18:57, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A (obvious?) question: where does the stress fall in Maya? (on this name in particular and/or in the language in general.) A related point: I've regularly heard people in central Mexico make a (self-conscious? affected?) effort to pronounce "TeotihuAcan", "TenonchtItlan", etc. -- presumably to get away from the imposed foreign forms. –Hajor

The stress is usually on the last syllable of words in Maya. I don't know about Nahautl. -- Infrogmation 02:07, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

So "Chichén" is a faithful representation of the indigenous pronunciation, then. OK. Re Nahuatl (which I do seem to insist on dragging in to these discussions on things Maya) -- I looked it up this afternoon: stress there is generally penultimate in most dialects. Fwiw. –Hajor 02:37, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sorry about the lame humor. It's Friday, and it's been a rough week... --Uncle Ed 19:17, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps I should never have entered this debate! Going more deeply into it only makes it more confusing! In the notes to the introduction to the Corpus cited above Graham states his position: "In choosing between alternative names and spellings, preference has usually been given to the more commonly accepted form, rather than versions that might be pedantically correct. ... Accents have been omitted from all Maya place names." (p. 1:11) Or later in the Spanish version: "Al escoger enter nombres alternativos o la mejor ortografía, usualmente se ha dado preferencia a la forma màs comúnmente aceptada, en lugar de las versiones que pudieren ser pedantemente correctas. ... Los acentos han sido omitidos en todos los nombres de lugares mayas." (p. 1:19) Graham omits the accents from "Chichen Itza" in both language versions. He does, however, retain the accent in the Spanish for "Petén", but does not retain it in English.

To say that we retain the accents because it is the "Spanish" version is misleading. The accents are an aid to pronunciation to both the English and the Spanish speaker; they do not somehow make the accented version into the Spanish one. The Oxford Style Manual in its "Dictionary for Editors" section does use the accented version of "Chichén Itzá"; the "Chicago Manual of Style" avoids the issue entirely. There is perhaps a need to develop some consistency around this issue, rather than just dealing with it one title at a time.

So, I'm not going to insist that we return to the accented version for the title, but I will continue to object that the accents somehow make it a Spanish language version. Eclecticology 20:22, 2004 Mar 26 (UTC)

Thanks for your input and your edits. I appreciate your work to make it clearer and more susinct, but the last one looked to me like it was giving the mistaken impression that Maya uses the accented version, hence my most recent edit. -- Infrogmation 02:07, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It would be inappropriate to conjecture about how the Mayans would write the name. To say that original Mayan was unaccented clouds the issue. The accentuation was there whether it was written or not. To say that the letters in question are written without diacritics in modern Mayan languages may be a little more accurate, but I don't feel comfortable making that assertion without knowing more about the orthography of these 30 or so languages in general. To say that the original Maya was written that way is ridiculous since latin letters were not used in these languages until after these people were occupied by their Spanish or English invaders. Yucatac is the Mayan language for the area in question, and it may very well write the name without diacritics, but one site [2] also suggests that the name is written Chitzen-Itza, but even I don't suggest that we go in that direction. In another site [3] I find "Though Yucatec, unlike Itzá, has been extensively studied and many dictionaries exist for it, none are complete enough to meet scholars' needs. Some don't include grammatical analyses; others omit usage examples or Spanish definitions; and still others don't adequately record vowel tone, which is crucial in Yucatec. Like Vietnamese, it is a tonal language: the same word may have two very different meanings depending on whether the vowel has a high or low tone."

So let's agree to the name without diacritics, but at the same time let's not go so far overboard in our justifications that we pretend to know how the Yucatec write something - and that without even reviewing the other Mayan languages. Eclecticology 05:26, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

"It would be inappropriate to conjecture about how the Mayans would write the name." I suspect you are making a false assumption here. The Maya language is very much alive in the Yucatán, both written and spoken. In some places signs are written in it. As I mentioned here earlier, it has been written in Latin characters since the 16th century. Accent marks generally point out exceptions-- when the accent falls some where other than would be expected by the normal rules of the language. In "Chichen Itza" it falls on the last sylable of each word, as would be expected in Maya, so no accent is needed. This was and is how the name has been written in Yucatec Maya. -- Infrogmation 18:55, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

User:Eclecticology just deleted my text in the article saying "It is not accented in the original Maya language (still spoken in the area)." with the comment "(We can't presume about how it was written)". I don't understand this edit. Are you under the mistaken impression that Maya is not written? What do you mean? Puzzled, -- Infrogmation 04:45, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We had an edit conflict when I went to post the above, but I think that what I said would answer your question. Eclecticology 05:30, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

I've just taken a stab at a new wording. Perhaps we needed to stress it is the methods for transliteratiing Maya into western ABCs that don't use accents? –Hajor 05:29, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your edit presumes that there is a "standard" orthography. What is the source for that? Which of the 30 Maya languages are you referring to? The term transliteration does not apply either; it is only relevant when you are attempting to represent one alphabetically or syllabicly written language into another. Original written Maya was a hieroglyphic language. Eclecticology 05:46, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

Ok. (1) For "transliteration" read "transcription"; sorry to have confused the terms. (2) Which of the 30? I'd assumed Yucateco, which is the dominant form in the entire peninsula -- fortunately much more linguistically homogeneous than the patchwork you get in the highlands of Chiapas or Guatemala. (3) Standard transcribed orthography? The one I've most often seen, in govt-issue Maya-language schoolbooks and on signposts at archaeological sites in Mexico -- which does feature plenty of apostrophes and acute accents, but only on doubled vowels (and I have no idea if that's a stress mark or indicates something entirely different). I can't find any SEP or INAH materials on the web, but here's the UDHR in that same transcription scheme: [4]. I've always seen that as the standard method for transcribing peninsular Maya, but I readily admit that I have no idea what approach is used in other parts. –Hajor 17:53, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Good! I think we have an understanding on (1). For (2) I also accept that Yucateco is the modern Mayan language that applies to the area. Still, to say that it is the same as the original language requires quite a leap.

It's (3) that's the problem. The link that you give (for which I thank you) also has versions in Q'echi and K'iche' which are also Mayan languages. The apostrophes are glottal stops, but I see nothing to explain how the accents are used. A deeper study of the linguistics of the language would be required to determine whether a standard even exists, and that is clearly beyond what we can expect for Wikipedia. The second of the citations in my previous post points to the problem. How can we honestly say that anything is standard when no standard exists? Eclecticology 18:37, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

And Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojol, Cakchiquel, Mam, and two versions of Huasteco. But I think Infrogmation makes a good point with what he says below: there is a tendency to use "Maya" restrictively to refer to the Yucatec(o) variety. Perhaps we do need to be more precise with our terminology. When talking about "a standard for govt-issue Maya-language" texts, I meant Maya-Yucateco. –Hajor 19:22, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yucatec Maya is the dialect throughout the Yucatán peninsula. It is the largest of the Maya languages; it is called "Yucatec Maya" by linguists but is known to its speakers and Yucatecos in general simply as "Maya". -- Infrogmation 18:57, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey all, I know this is a two-year-old debate, but I just got around to reading it. I studied and I speak Yucatec Maya (although I'm a gringo). I'm not going to come down on any side of any issue here, just clarify some points. The language in Yucatan is technically just "Maya". Every Yucatecan speaker of the language calls it "Maya". However, there are other "Mayan" languages (Quiche, Kanjobal, Kekchi, etc. - dozens of them). So, modern researchers often use the term "Yucatec Maya" to signify that they mean "Maya as spoken in Yucatan". As for the accents on syllables. Everyone is correct, but none are correct. The words would be spelled without accents in English, however the lack of accents often lead to poor pronounciation for English speakers (sounding like Chicken Pizza). The Maya would actually spell it Chi Ch'en (so the accent is really on the CH, which neither Spanish nor English orthographies use - it's a very hard CH created by a more forceful stop of the airflow on your upper pallate with your tongue). In Maya, the sounds CH and CH' are different consonants and can change the meaning of a word. So, like I said, everyone is right, yet no one is right. You just have to pick a standardization and stick with it. HOWEVER, please note that anyone who uses the "K" excessively (such as "Yukatan" or "Yukatek") is calling for a radical revision of the orthography that is not widely accepted. This arose largely out of a native language movement in Guatemala, and should not be applied to Yucatec Maya at this time, especially in a general-content format like Wikipedia. Chunchucmil 03:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Accenting cannot be technically correct, since there weren't apostrophes in Yucatecan Maya; I agree with Chunchucmil, but we should probably stick to the spelling that is used currently by local government (Chichén Itzá). Let's forget the imperial this and that--e.g. calling Myanmar Burma--as it is irrelevant to the actual spelling and pronounciation used today. Also, accenting will, as discussed above, help people with pronounciation from 'chi-chin' to 'chee-chen'.

On a side comment, this is an awfully long thread without a satisfying resolution in 6 years!Apothecia (talk) 09:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

(((I just put my comment in incorrect section. Can someone erase it from images please.))) Here is the comment and I did make a change.

Auf Wiedersehen to the old good Chichén Itzá. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.147.179.73 (talk) 12:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I didn't even finish reading all the comments. Just want to put my two cents in. I went to Mexico in 1968 or 1969 (I cannot remember) and I have pamphlets about Chichen Itza. They had accents on the last syllables and verbally pronounced it to me as Chi CHEN It ZA. I believe we should put the accents on it so that people can learn to pronounce it correctly. I think the pronounciation of it as CHI chen IT za possibly was from the travel industry. Just my humble opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.132.87.217 (talk) 21:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi anon 71.132.87.217, your duplicate message is removed. If you read through the first section in the article on name and orthography, you'll see it gives a reasonably detailed account of the pronunciation and orthographical variants. Folks reading through that should be able to get a handle on it, I don't think putting the accents on it (which are only a requirement of spanish spelling/orthographical conventions, not mayan nor english) throughout would add anything to that. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:08, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

"Chicken Pizza"? the mayan language sound a lot like a chinese name. The words are broken down into syllables. I heard the name pronounces as something close to you saying chicken pizza with no space in the middle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.106.240.164 (talk) 04:15, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The word Itza or Itsa is an ancient Athabaskin word. It means eagle.However as far as conjugation, it may be Ne or n' which means "yours" or "of you". I doubt that it is N'itsa and is properly itsa. What is the take away from this? The translation becomes The mouth of the well of the feathered-being. It may be derivative of the feathered serpent which would make sense. Possibly it is "mouth of the feathered serpent". The monuments are not dedicated to a faction, they are dedicated to the symbol of the being "Feathered Serpent". Tredcloud (talk) 04:40, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

The fact that it coincides with an Athabaskin word is irrelevant in a Maya context... The cultures are far removed. It's a bit like arguing for "red" in English meaning something in a Spanish sentence where "red" means "net", pure coincidence without any linguistic relationship. Simon Burchell (talk) 13:48, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Link rot

Please add this. Thanks.

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2019

Spacegamer09 (talk) 12:02, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2019

please let me edit this page for a vid I will change it back after promise Spacegamer09 (talk) 12:05, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: requests for decreases to the page protection level should be directed to the protecting admin or to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection if the protecting admin is not active or has declined the request. You can alternatively edit another article that is not semi protected. Danski454 (talk) 19:27, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Too Soon?

An edit done in good faith does not belong on the page, at least for now. I'm copying the text here to point out the issues: "A cave system known as Balamkú (English: Jaguar God), first discovered 50 years ago, was rediscovered in March 2019. [It was not rediscovered. The cave was well known, and published on official maps]

Long forgotten, [The cave was never forgotten.]

155 ceramic incense burners, as well as clay boxes and other vessels, have been discovered. [The artifacts were discovered 50 years ago]

November 2019 findings by archaeologist Guillermo de Anda, who leads the Gran Acuífero Maya project, indicate the city may have been founded 400 or more years earlier than previously believed, i.e. in about 100 CE, rather than between 525 and 1100 CE. [The charcoal that was radiocarboned is from another cave, Balankanche. As human habitation on the Yucatan Peninsula has been traced back 12,000 years (oldest in the Americas), finding traces of human habitation in a cave is not proof of settlement. These findings will be discussed this week, and perhaps, after peer review and once published in a journal, the timeline may change. But for now, it's speculation.]CoyoteMan31 (talk) 21:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

cenote canoe

https://todayuknews.com/science/archaeology-rare-1100-year-old-maya-canoe-found-submerged-in-a-freshwater-pool-in-southern-mexico/ Significant enough to mention? 199.127.133.181 (talk) 16:42, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

While news articles claim the "canoe" was found near Chichen Itza, the cenote where it was discovered appears to be some distance away (closer to Ek Balam, for example). In my view, this info isn't relevant to Chichen. But it seems to me there should be somwehere on Wikepedia where it would be relevant. CoyoteMan31 (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)