Mayan sign languages

Mayan sign languages are used in Mexico and Guatemala by Maya communities with unusually high numbers of deaf inhabitants. In some instances, both hearing and deaf members of a village may use the sign language. These sign languages are thought to be unrelated to both the "national sign languages" of Mexico (Mexican Sign Language) and Guatemala (Guatemalan Sign Language), as well as the local spoken Mayan languages and Spanish.

Yucatec Maya Sign Language
Yucatec Maya Sign Language is used in the Yucatán region by both hearing and deaf rural Mayans. It is a natural complex language, which is not related to Mexican Sign Language, but may have similarities with sign languages found in nearby Guatemala.

As the hearing villagers are competent in the sign language, the deaf inhabitants seem to be well integrated in the community - in contrast to the marginalisation of deaf people in the wider community, and also in contrast to Highland Maya Sign Language, which appears to be used in at least one village as a means of social segregation and oppression (see below).

The spoken language of the community is Yucatec Maya language.

Highland Maya Sign Language
In the highlands of Guatemala, Mayas use a sign language that belongs to a "sign language complex" known locally in the K'ichee'an language as Meemul Ch'aab'al and Meemul Tziij, "mute language." Researcher Erich Fox Tree reports that it is used by deaf rural Mayans throughout the region, as well as some traders and traditional storytellers. These communities and Fox Tree believe that Meemul Ch'aab'al belongs to an ancient family of Mayan sign languages. Fox Tree claims that Yutactec Maya Sign Language is also "closely-related and substantially mutually-intelligible".

In at least one highland community, the sign language is used by "an impoverished class of deaf and hearing servants who are often forbidden to speak aloud in the presence of their masters: a hidden class of rural peons who call themselves 'slaves.'"