Mayanadj.n.

1834 Amer. Ann. Educ. Sept. 394 In Yucatan, the Mayan tongue is spoken.

1844 Southern Q. Rev. July 190 The Aztec dialect succeeded to that of the Mayan.

1967 M. Swadesh in N. A. McQuown Handbk. Middle Amer. Indians V. 83/2 A paper on the relationship of Huastec to Yucatec in the Mayan family.

1977 Language 53 464 Tzotzil is a Mayan language with more than 120,000 speakers, all living in the State of Chiapas, Mexico.

1992 Eng. Today Jan. 14/1 Many such loans reflect the influence of the indigenous Amerindian sources, particularly via..the Mayan languages in the case of Belize.

2007 P. M. Rice Maya Calendar Origins 102/1 Although the word for maize might be Uto-Aztecan..rather than Mixe-Zoquean, Mayan words for maize preparation, such as grinding corn, are PMZ [sc. Proto-Mixe-Zoquean].

1875 Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc. 20 The earliest account in detail..of Mayan ruins, situated in the States of Chiapas and Yucatan, is presented in the narrative of Captain Antonio del Rio, in 1787.

1876 Edinb. Rev. Oct. 311 Mr. Bancroft believes that the Mayan power was the first to be developed in Central America.

1889 S. Hale Mexico viii. 82 The Mayan legends..tell of nothing but wars and conquests, struggles and defeats.

1911 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 335/2 These Pipils..migrated into territories previously occupied by an older race of Mayan origin... The easternmost limit of prehistoric Mayan civilization, on the Pacific coast of Central America is Fonseca Bay.

1926 Blackwood's Mag. Nov. 647/2 This man..was of pure Maya blood, and was filled..with old Mayan lore and tradition.

1968 Listener 11 July 53/3 They describe the attempts of Olson, newly arrived in Yucatan, to come to terms with Mayan culture.

1981 G. Daniel Short Hist. Archaeol. iv. 177 The Lindberghs photographed the Mayan hinterland of Belize.

2009 L. Lowery & R. Keep Chocolate Tree 6 Mayan farmers worked on farms called milpas.

1911 Encycl. Brit. at Maya Physically the Mayans are a..short and sturdy type.

1923 H. I. Priestley Mexican Nation ii In the modern oil region along the Pánuco River and the coast, was a segregated group of Mayans.

1965 B. Ross Mexico i. 21 They asked him where he had obtained the cloth and the pottery? The Mayan said that it came from a land not very far away.

1995 Earth Oct. 22/2 (caption) Mayans once worshipped at this temple to the sun god in Altun Ha, an ancient city in the jungles of Belize.

2016 L. Spilsbury Mayans 4 The mighty Mayans ruled the forests of Mesoamerica..for 1,200 years.

1962 L. Kemp tr. M. Leon-Portilla Broken Spears iii. 31 By the time Cortes ransomed him from the natives eight years later he spoke Mayan fluently.

1973 New Yorker 24 Mar. 116/2 He got the word in Mayan for ‘road’ or ‘journey’.

1990 Sciences Nov. 5/2 From Chinese to Chinook and Swahili to Mayan, the words for mother and father are quite close to mamma and papa.

2004 B. Fahey Mayan in Sino-Platonic Papers (Univ. of Pennsylvania) Feb. 35 The only surviving voiced contrast in Mayan is: b' p'.