Chan Ajau — in Yucatec Maya, or called Màaya t’àan by its speakers. It is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Belize. To native speakers, the proper name is Maya and it is known only as Maya. The qualifier Yucatec is a tag linguists use to distinguish it from other Mayan languages (such as K’iche’ and Itza’). In the Mexican states of Yucatán, some parts of Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas, and Quintana Roo, Maya remains many speakers’ first language today, with 800,000 speakers. There are 6,000 speakers in Belize.
