Un Acercamiento a la Documentación del Léxico Zoológico en la Lexicografía de Lenguas Mayas

Abstract

Ethnobiological knowledge is codified in vernacular languages. Zoological vocabulary is a means of accessing the deep and complex relationships between people and animals. Mayan is one of the most studied language families in Mesoamerica. Lexicographic research on Mayan languages ??is heterogeneous, both in terms of the languages ??that have received more attention than others and in terms of the objectives, approaches, and scope of the dictionaries produced to date. Lexicographic documentation of biological linguistic domains, including animal vocabulary, is also varied within the Mayan family. Taking this into account, this paper aims to offer a general review of the documentation of zoological vocabulary that has been produced to date in Mayan languages ??for exclusively lexicographic purposes, emphasizing the different types of works and their objectives, the methodologies used to obtain the data, and the zoological content of the dictionaries themselves. The results of the review of the presence and treatment of zoological vocabulary in the lexicography of Mayan languages ??reveal various issues. Key among these are the correspondence between vernacular and scientific names, the ways of taxonomically identifying the animals referred to, the methods used to recognize species and establish bridges of understanding, and the depth of ethnozoological knowledge displayed in vocabularies and dictionaries. The conclusions include reflections on the importance of interdisciplinarity in lexicographic documentation projects oriented toward ethnobiological domains and the urgency of expanding such work, given the rapid transformation of ecosystems as a result of habitat loss, the disappearance of species, and their correspondence with the decline of the associated vocabulary.