Editing Yucatec Maya language (section)

===Vowels===
In terms of vowel quality, Yucatec Maya has a straightforward five vowel system:

{| class="wikitable"
!
! [[Front vowel|Front]]
! [[Back vowel|Back]]
|- align="center"
! [[Close vowel|Close]]
| {{IPA link|i}}
| {{IPA link|u}}
|- align="center"
! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]
| {{IPA link|e}}
| {{IPA link|o}}
|- align="center"
! [[Open vowel|Open]]
| colspan="2" | {{IPA link|a}}
|}

For each of these five vowel qualities, the language contrasts four distinct vowel "shapes", i.e. combinations of [[vowel length]], [[tone (linguistics)|tone]], and [[phonation]]. In the standard orthography first adopted in 1984,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20180726170115/http://www.cofemersimir.gob.mx/expediente/20612/mir/43270/anexo/3733913]</ref> vowel length is indicated by digraphs (e.g. "aa" for IPA {{IPA|[aː]}}).

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Short, neutral tone !! Long, low tone !! Long, high tone !! Creaky voiced ('glottalized,<br>rearticulated'), long, high tone
|-
| pik 'eight thousand' {{IPA|[pik]}} || miis 'cat' {{IPAblink|mìːs}} || míis {{IPAblink|míːs}} 'broom; to sweep' || niʼichʼ {{IPAblink|nḭ́ːtʃʼ}} 'to get bitten'
|}

In fast-paced speech, the glottalized long vowels may be pronounced the same as the plain long high vowels, so in such contexts ''ka’an'' {{IPA|[ká̰ːn]}} 'sky' sounds the same as ''káan'' {{IPA|[káːn]}} 'when?'.