Lexicographic exploration of six Yucatec Maya dictionaries

Abstract

This article is an exploratory research study of the characteristics of six Yucatec Maya dictionaries, selected based on a web survey of users who are native and non-native speakers of the Maya language: Academia de la Lengua Maya de Yucatán (ALMY, 2003), Bastarrachea Manzano, Yah Pech & Briceño Chel (1992), Bricker, Po’ot Yah & Dzul de Po’ot (1998), Gómez Navarrete (2009), Martínez Huchim (2008) and Montgomery (2004). We developed a rubric for evaluating the dictionaries, following Fuentes Morán, García & Torres (2005) and the recommendations on the elaboration of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries in Indigenous languages (Callaghan, 2002; Frawley, Hill & Munro, 2002; Hinton & Weigel, 2002). The analysis of the dictionaries was conducted based on macrostructure (text organization, text extension, orthography, and alphabet) and microstructure of the dictionaires (grammatical specification, glosses, examples, variants, and lexical loans); these characteristics are also discussed from the perspectives of the users surveyed. Finally, we include our recommendations regarding the role of linguistic ideologies in the elaboration of dictionaries, before suggesting lines for future research.