Cover not available
Part of
The Linguistics of Temperature
Edited by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
[Typological Studies in Language 107] 2015
► pp. 742–775

Temperature terms and their meaning in Yucatec Maya (Mexico)

Many authors suggest that temperature meaning is primarily defined through bodily experience (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2007; Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Rakhilina 2006). While this is probably the case for the basic meaning of many temperature terms around the world, some languages nonetheless use temperature terms to refer to categorical temperatures. Importantly, categorical temperature meaning need not be metaphorical, but may refer to a fixed thermal state of an entity (i.e. hot or cold) disregarding its actual temperature (as measurable with a thermometer). This paper explores how in Yucatec Maya, temperature terms are not only used for description of sensory, but also categorical temperatures. Such a system challenges the assumption that temperature conceptualisation would exclusively be defined anthropocentrically.
Published online: 11 February 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.107.24gue
References (36)
References
Academia de la lengua Maya de Yucatan, A.C. 2003. Diccionario Maya popular. Mérida: Academia de la lengua Maya de Yucatan.Google Scholar
Anderson, Eugene N. 1987. Why is humoral medicine so popular? Social Science & Medicine 25(4): 331–337. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atran, Scott, Lois, Ximena & Ucan Ek, Edilberto. 2004. Plants of the Peten Itza’ Maya: Plantas de los Maya Itza’ Del Peten, University of Michigan Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology (eds). Ann Arbor MI: Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Atran, Scott & Medin, Douglas L. 2008. The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature. Boston MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Barrera Vázquez, Alfredo (ed.). 1980. Diccionario Maya Cordemex Maya-Español-Maya. México: Editorial Porrúa.Google Scholar
Bricker, Victoria R. 1999. Color and texture in the Maya language of Yucatan. Anthropological Linguistics 41(3): 283–307.Google Scholar
Bricker, Victoria R., Po’ot Yah, Eleuterio & Dzul de Po’ot, Ofelia. 1998. A Dictionary of the Maya Language as Spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán. Salt Lake City UT: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Buse, Jasper E. 1965. Problems of morphology and classification illustrated from Rarotongan. Lingua 15: 32–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colson, Audrey Butt & de Armellada, Cesareo. 1983. An Amerindian derivation for Latin American Creole illnesses and their treatment. Social Science & Medicine 17(17): 1229–1248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixon, Robert M.W. 2009. Basic Linguistic Theory, Vol. 2. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Foster, George M. 1987. On the origin of humoral medicine in Latin America. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1(4): 355–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1994. Hippocrates’ Latin American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World. Langhorne PA: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Le Guen, Olivier. 2003. Quand les morts reviennent. Réflexion sur L’ancestralité chez les Mayas des Basses-Terres. Journal De La Société Des Américanistes 2(89): 171–205.Google Scholar
. 2011. Materiality vs. expressivity: The use of sensory vocabulary in Yucatec Maya. The Sense and Society 6(1): 117–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hanks, William F. 2005. Explorations in the deictic field. Current Anthropology 46(2): 191–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
INEGI. 2010. III Conteo de población y vivienda 2010 (Population and Household Census 2010), Mexico.Google Scholar
Kelly, Isabel. 1965. Folk Practices in North Mexico: Birth Customs, Folk Medicine, and Spiritualism in the Laguna Zone. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2007. Guidelines for collecting linguistic expressions for temperature concepts, Version 1. <[URL]>
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria & Rakhilina, Ekaterina V. 2006. "Some like it hot": On the semantics of temperature adjectives in Russian and Swedish. STUF (Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung) 59(2): 253-269. Special issue The Lexicon: Typological and Contrastive Perspectives, Giannoula Giannoulopoulou & Torsten Leuschner (eds),Google Scholar
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 1993. Predicate classes in Yucatec Maya. Función 13(14): 195–272.Google Scholar
Lois, Ximena & Vapnarsky, Valentina. 2006. Root indeterminacy and polyvalence in Yukatekan Mayan languages. In Lexical Categories and Root Classes in Amerindian Languages, Ximena Lois & Valentina Vapnarsky (eds), 69–116. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Lopez Austin, Alfredo. 1980. Cuerpo Humano e Ideología: Las Concepciones De Los Antiguos Nahuas (Human body and ideology: Conceptions of ancient Nahuas). Mexico DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas.Google Scholar
Manderson, Lenore. 1987. Hot-cold food and medical theories: Overview and introduction. Social Science & Medicine 25(4): 329–330. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mathews, Holly F. 1983. Context-specific variation in humoral classification. American Anthropologist 85: 826–847. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCullough, John M. 1973. Human ecology, heat adaptation, and belief systems: The hot-cold syndrome of Yucatan. Journal of Anthropological Research 29(1): 32–36.Google Scholar
Medin, Douglas L. & Atran, Scott. 1999. Folkbiology. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Medin, Douglas L., Ross, Norbert, Atran, Scott, Cox, Douglas, Coley, John, Proffitt, Julia B. & Blok, Sergey. 2006. The role of culture in the folk biology of freshwater fish. Cognition 3(99): 237–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Messer, Ellen. 1981. Hot-cold classification: Theoretical and practical implications of a Mexican study. Social Science & Medicine. Part B: Medical Anthropology 15(2): 133–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1987. The hot and cold in Mesoamerican indigenous and hispanicized thought. Social Science & Medicine 25(4): 339–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Neuenswander, Helen L. & Souder, Shirley D. 1977. The hot-cold wet-dry syndrome among the Quiche of Joyabaj: Two alternative cognitive models. In Cognitive Studies of Southern Mesoamerica [Museum of Anthropology Publication 3], Helen L. Neuenswander & Dean E. Arnold (eds), 96–125. Dallas TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Redfield, Robert & Villa Rojas, Alfonso. 1934. Chan Kom, a Maya Village. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Edward E. & Medin, Douglas L. 1981. Categories and Concepts, 1st edn. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verhoeven, Elisabeth. 2010. Agentivity and stativity in experiencer verbs: Implications for a typology of verb classes. Linguistic Typology 14(2-3): 213–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Villa Rojas, Alphonso. 1987. Los Elegidos De Dios. Etnografía De Los Mayas De Quintana Roo (God’s chosen. Ethnography of the Mayas of Quintana Roo). México: Instituto Indigenista.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria
2022. Chapter 8. Talking temperature with close relatives. In The Typology of Physical Qualities [Typological Studies in Language, 133], ► pp. 215 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.