Editing Yucatec Maya language (section)

==Orthography==
The Maya were literate in [[pre-Columbian]] times, when the language was written using [[Maya script]]. The language itself can be traced back to proto-Yucatecan, the ancestor of modern Yucatec Maya, [[Itza language|Itza]], [[Lacandon language|Lacandon]] and [[Mopan language|Mopan]]. Even further back, the language is ultimately related to all other Maya languages through [[proto-Mayan]] itself.

Yucatec Maya is now written in the [[Latin script]]. This was introduced during the [[Spanish Conquest of Yucatán]] which began in the early 16th century, and the now-antiquated conventions of [[Spanish orthography]] of that period ("Colonial orthography") were adapted to transcribe Yucatec Maya. This included the use of {{angle bracket|x}} for the [[Voiceless postalveolar fricative|postalveolar fricative]] sound (which is often written in English as {{angle bracket|sh}}).

In colonial times a "reversed c" {{angle bracket|ɔ}} was often used to represent {{IPA|/t͡sʼ/}} (the [[alveolar ejective affricate]]). This sound is now represented by {{angle bracket|tzʼ}} in the revised [[Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala|ALMG]] orthography and {{angle bracket|tsʼ}} in the [[INALI]] orthography.