The Mayan languages

Language family · North America

WALS includes 30 Mayan languages in 1 branch; all of them are in North America.

Basic word order: VSO in 4 of the 11 members coded, then VOS in 3, SVO in 2, no dominant order in 2.

The most solid shared trait: all 20 members coded for Finger and Hand have different.

Of these, 4 have a full page on this site.

Every Mayan language in WALS, placed at the point the atlas gives for it.

Word order against the world

Members with at least 30 coded features, compared with every language WALS codes for each pairing.

dependent before the headboth or otherafter the head

Where the family agrees most
Feature	Most frequent value	Members
Finger and Hand	Different	20 of 20
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	11 of 11
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	11 of 11
Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-genitive (NGen)	10 of 10
The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	9 of 9
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	9 of 9
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	8 of 8
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases obligatorily initial	8 of 8

Where it is most divided
Feature	Largest group	Members
Order of Subject, Object and Verb	Verb-subject-object (VSO)	4 of 11
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Predominantly prefixing	3 of 8
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	3 of 8
Position of Polar Question Particles	Question particle at beginning of sentence	3 of 8
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Tense-aspect prefixes	4 of 10

Language	Branch	Basic order	Features coded
Cakchiquel	Mayan	not coded	23
Chontal Maya	Mayan	not coded	26
Huastec	Mayan	SVO	47
Jakaltek	Mayan	VSO	120
Mam	Mayan	VSO	48
Sipakapense	Mayan	not coded	22
Tzotzil	Mayan	VOS	30
Tzutujil	Mayan	no dominant order	60
Yucatec	Mayan	not coded	23

Not listed: 21 further Mayan languages with fewer than 20 coded features.