Maya · maya

核心畫面

Picture a people who cut a date into a stone wall and whose can still read it. That is the centre of this word: the Maya, the people of the Yucatan and of Central America, who built cities and , watched the sky, and wrote things down — and who did not stop, because millions of them farm, trade and teach in those same places today. From that one picture the word turns two ways without changing its meaning: point it at one person and you get a Maya, point it at what they speak and you get Maya, the language.

「Maya」可以想成一群在石牆上刻下日期、而他們的後代今天還讀得出那個日期的人。這就是這個字的中心:住在猶加敦和中美更多收起「Maya」可以想成一群在石牆上刻下日期、而他們的後代今天還讀得出那個日期的人。這就是這個字的中心:住在猶加敦和中美洲的馬雅人。他們蓋城市和金字塔,觀察天空,把事情寫下來。而且沒有中斷——今天還有幾百萬人在同樣的地方務農、做生意、教書。從這一個畫面出發,這個字可以轉兩個方向,意思本身沒有變:指向其中一個人,就是 a Maya;指向他們說的話,就是 Maya 這個語言。

From the word’s history

English took the word through Spanish maya. The Spanish word comes from Yucatec Maya: either mayab, meaning flat, or maaya, a name the northern Maya used for themselves, seen in phrases such as maya wiinik, a Maya man.

英文的 Maya 是經由西班牙文 maya 進來的。西班牙文的來源是猶加敦馬雅語:一種說法是 mayab(平坦的),另一種說法是馬雅人北部族群自稱的 maaya,在 maya' wiinik(馬雅人)這種詞組裡看得到。所以這個名字有可能本來就是他們對自己的稱呼。

Wiktionary entries for Maya, etymology 1 (packet source_refs kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:451590245:7120 and :451597365:7988): Borrowed from Spanish maya, from Yucatec Maya mayab (flat) or maaya.

One branch

核心畫面本身,差別只在你看的是一整個民族還是其中一個人。

noun · B2

The Maya are a Native American people of the Yucatan area of Mexico and of Central America. They built a very advanced society between the 4th and 10th centuries AD, and are known for their art, their writing, and their stone pyramids.

馬雅人(整個民族)