Abstract

Research on the acquisition of the Mayan languages has a 45-year history, beginning in the late sixties with Brian Stross’s (1969) study of Tseltal child language and continuing into the seventies with Stephen H. Straight’s (1976) study of Yucatec children’s phonology and Pye’s (1979) study of K’iche’ children’s inflectional morphology. In the nineties, Penelope Brown, Lourdes de León, and Barbara Pfeiler began longitudinal studies documenting the acquisition of Tseltal, Tsotsil, and Yucatec respectively. Pye initiated new longitudinal studies documenting the acquisition of Ch’ol, Mam, and Q’anjob’al in 2005; Pfeiler began a longitudinal study of Huastec in 2010; and Pedro Mateo Pedro started a longitudinal study of Chuj in 2011.