Editing Classic Maya language (section)

== History ==
During the [[Classic period|Classic Period]], the main branches of Proto-Mayan began to diversify into separate languages. The division between Proto-Yucatecan (in the north, the [[Yucatán Peninsula]]) and Proto-Cholan (in the south, the [[Chiapas]] highlands and the [[Petén Basin]]) had already occurred in the Classic, when most of the Mayan inscriptions existing were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly known as the "classical Mayan language".

Although a single prestigious language was by far the most frequently recorded in extant [[Maya script|hieroglyphic]] texts, evidence of at least three different varieties of Maya has been discovered within the hieroglyphic corpus: an Eastern Ch'olan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands, a western Ch'olan variety spread from the [[Usumacinta River|Usumacinta]] region from the mid-7th century onwards, and a Yucatecan variety found in texts from the Yucatan Peninsula.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mesoweb Resources|url=http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/handbook/index.html|access-date=2021-01-20|website=www.mesoweb.com}}</ref> The reason that only a few linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that they served as prestigious dialects throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been written in the language of the elite.

Stephen Houston, John Robertson, and David Stuart have suggested that the specific variety of Chʼolan found in most southern lowland glyphic texts was a language they called "classical Chʼoltiʼ," the ancestor language of the Chʼortiʼ languages and modern Chʼoltiʼ. They propose that it originated in the western and south-central basin of the [[Petén Basin|Petén]], and that it was used in inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. However, Mora-Marín has argued that the traits shared by the Classic Lowland Maya and Chʼoltian languages are retentions rather than innovations, and that the diversification of Chʼolan is indeed [[Post-Classic]]al. The language of the classical lowland inscriptions would then have been Proto-Cholan.