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The analysis of language contact phenomena, as with many types of linguistic analysis, starts from the similarity and difference of linguistic systems. This dissertation will examine the consequences of linguistic similarity and the social construction of difference in the ‘Lowland Mayan linguistic area’, a region spanning parts of Guatemala, Southern Mexico, Belize and Honduras, in which related languages, all belonging to the Mayan language family, have been in intensive contact with each other over at least the past two millennia. The linguistic outcomes of this contact are described in detail in the dissertation. They include contact-induced changes in the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the languages involved of a type and degree that seems to contravene otherwise robust cross-linguistic tendencies. I propose that these cross-linguistically unusual outcomes of language contact in the Maya Lowlands result, in part, from an awareness of the inherited similarities between these languages, and in part from the role that linguistic features, but not languages as whole systems, appear to have played in the formation of community or other identities. This dissertation investigates two complementary questions about language contact phenomena that can be ideally explored through the study of languages with a high level of inherited similarity in contact with one another. The first is how historically specific, dynamic strategies and processes of constructing and asserting group identity and difference, as well as the role that language plays in these, can condition the outcomes of language contact. The second is more language internal: what role does (formal, structural) inherited similarity play in conditioning the outcome of language contact between related languages? These two questions are connected in the following hypothesis: that inherited linguistic similarity can itself be an important resource in the construction of identity and difference in particular social settings, and that the awareness of similarity between languages (mediated, as it is, by these processes of identity construction) facilitates contact-induced changes that are unlikely, or even unavailable without that perception of sameness. This proposal carries with it a call for more research on contact between related languages as related languages, and not as utterly separate systems. / text

Thesis (doctorate)--Helsinki University, 2005. / Title from home page (viewed Aug. 20, 2008). Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in print version.

La documentation et description du huastèque du sud-est (code d’Ethnologue HSF), une langue Maya du Mexique, est un projet doctoral en cotutelle entre l’ University of Sydney, Australie et l’Université Lyon 2 Lumière, France. La première partie de cette these (le Volume 1) consiste en la description grammaticale de cette langue Maya: sa phonologie, sa morphologie et sa syntaxe, ainsi que la description de l’expression de l’espace dans cette langue. Le Volume 2 de cette thèse représente les contes en HSF, une description deétaillée du projet de documentation, un long résumé en français, et les matériels pour la revitalisation de la langue. / The documentation and description of South Eastern Huastec (Ethnologue code HSF), a Mayan language from Mexico, is a PhD project carried out in cotutelle between the University of Sydney, Australia and the Université Lyon 2 Lumière, France. The first part (the Volume 1) of this thesis is a grammatical description of this Mayan language: its Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax, as well as its Space encoding. The second volume (the Volume 2) of this thesis comprises HSF stories, a detailed description of the documentation project, a detailed summary in French, and the HSF revitalization materials.

This work is dedicated to the study of the dialect of Spanish at Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico). The work is divided into three sections. In the first part, the basic concepts related to the subject of the work are delimited. The second part focuses on the evolution of Spanish and Amerindian languages in Mexico, as well it includes the linguistic situation at Yucatan Peninsula and characterizes the Mayan languages. As for the third part, it consists of the analysis of Spanish of Yucatan, it includes descriptions of characteristics of phonetics, morphology and lexicology. The work emphasizes the influence of Mayan language on the dialect.