Since my last post, I've been continuing with some of the same work; mainly, I have been listening to recorded interviews in Maya (typically about 1 hour long) and taking notes on their content in an Excel sheet. I've also had the chance to travel to Chapab, Maní, and Sacapuc, three towns surrounding Mérida, to work with and learn from people there. My interactions have been overwhelmingly positive, as people are excited to share knowledge, language, food, experiences, etc. with me. Sharing that I'm an American studying in New York prompts a lot of questions, which makes it relatively easy to start conversations and get to know people. We often talk about culture, and I've found that sharing my impressions/knowledge of Yucatán's culture (which foods I like best, what kind of music/dances I know, etc.) is both interesting for interlocuters, and also makes people excited to share more about culture and tradition here. Many people, especially younger adults, also are interested to hear about life in New York, and it has been fun to share my impressions of the city. Unexpectedly, I've also had a lot of conversations with kids, mostly in the age range of 8-12; it's been really interesting to hear their impressions of daily life, school, etc., and also exciting to see their enthusiasm for speaking Maya. 

I've also had a lot of interesting conversations about the politics and future of Maya language use, particularly with my supervisor. A very common topic is the linguistic purism vs descriptivism argument: how acceptable is it for Maya speakers to blend Spanish words (or phrases, syntax, morphology, etc.) into their speech? A few days ago, for example, we attended the awards ceremony for an annual Maya-language songwriting contest, and saw the top three winners perform their songs. This was very exciting for me because it was so directly relevant to my research project from last summer (and one of the rappers whose music I looked at, Yaalen K'uj, performed three songs at the ceremony!). After the performances, my supervisor expressed frustration at the fact that most of the songs included Spanish in their lyrics; his sentiment was that Spanish-language music already has its place, and that to give Maya-language music more prestige or recognition, it's necessary to make music exclusively in Maya. If a song has Spanish lyrics, it will be considered a Spanish-language song, even if this is not the intention. Conversations like these have given me a lot to think about, and redoubled my interest in the language!

Traveling to surrounding towns has also been very eye-opening. Below is a photo of the convent in Maní, which I traveled to on Sunday. This is where Diego de Landa carried out his auto de fe, burning all extant Maya-language codices and writings. Only three works survived, because they had been sent to Europe earlier as gifts.