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Language revitalisation from the

ground up: promoting Yucatec Maya on
Facebook
a
Josep Cru
a
Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies,
Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Published online: 06 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Josep Cru (2014): Language revitalisation from the ground up: promoting
Yucatec Maya on Facebook, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, DOI:
10.1080/01434632.2014.921184

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 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2014.921184

Language revitalisation from the ground up: promoting Yucatec

Maya on Facebook
Josep Cru*

Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, Newcastle University, Newcastle
upon Tyne, UK
(Received 4 October 2013; accepted 25 April 2014)

This paper looks at current grassroots efforts to revitalise Yucatec Maya, an indigenous
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language of Mexico, in social media and more specifically on Facebook. In contrast to

the limitations of institutional language promotion, the inclusion of Maya on
Facebook shows the possibilities that social networks offer not only for actual use
of minoritised languages but also for advocacy and activism, particularly among
indigenous youth. The concept of heteroglossia is also introduced to explain the
plurilingual practices of youngsters in Yucatán based on their increasingly complex
linguistic repertoire. The main argument is that grassroots initiatives of language
revitalisation that focus on local contexts, horizontal linguistic practices, and speakers
as final agents are particularly significant in a country with deeply entrenched vertical
and often tokenistic policies aimed at the promotion of indigenous languages and
cultures.
Keywords: language revitalisation; Yucatec Maya; social media; indigenous youth;
heteroglossia

Introduction
Yucatec Maya, simply known locally as Maya, is the main indigenous language spoken in
the south-eastern Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche and Quintana Roo, and also in
the neighbouring country of Belize. Yucatec Maya belongs to the Mayan language family,
which includes several indigenous languages of southern Mexico and Guatemala (Suárez
1983). According to official figures (INEGI 2010), Yucatec Maya is still spoken by more
than 750,000 people on the Yucatán Peninsula. Despite this relatively large number of
speakers, a longitudinal look at censuses and sociolinguistic research (Pfeiler 1999;
Pfeiler and Zámišová 2006; Güémez 2008) shows that rapid shift to Spanish is under
way. In the period from 1990 to 2010 the percentage of Yucatec Maya speakers has
steadily decreased from 44.2% to 30.3% in Yucatán state, from 32.2% to 16.9% in
Campeche and from 18.9% to 12.3% in Quintana Roo (INEGI 2010). Against the
background of extensive and profound socio-economic changes such as urbanisation,
migration and the growth of tourism and the service industry, Maya language
abandonment stems from the persistent subordinate position that most Maya speakers
hold in the Yucatecan society (Blakanoff and Moseley 2008; Bracamonte, Lizama, and
Solís 2011).

*Email: josep.cru@ncl.ac.uk

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 2 J. Cru

As a response to indigenous mobilisation, particularly following the aftermath of the

Zapatista uprising in the late 1990s, legislation has been recently reformed or developed
in Mexico with a view to recognising indigenous languages and cultures (Hernández,
Paz, and Sierra 2004). In 2003, the General Law on Linguistic Rights of Indigenous
Peoples was passed. Three years later a federal body, the National Institute of Indigenous
Languages (INALI), was created to promote Mexican indigenous languages. However,
INALI has been primarily concerned with the cataloguing and standardisation of
indigenous languages, an approach which may lead to their legitimation and valorisation
but not necessarily to active policies of revitalisation. Government language policies for
indigenous languages that emphasise standardisation and literacy seem to reproduce the
tenets for the spread of Spanish as the hegemonic language of Mexico. While indigenous
languages are mainly used in oral form, official language policies in Mexico have
historically concentrated on the introduction of these languages in a highly dysfunctional
bilingual education system (Heath 1972; Aguirre 1993; Hidalgo 2006). In Yucatán state, a
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regional agency for the development of Maya culture called INDEMAYA was created in
2000.1 Although the promotion of Maya is one of INDEMAYA’s goals, its tokenistic
policies of revalorisation have not had significant impact on the revitalisation of Maya.
In short, a mere discursive recognition of indigenous languages and persistent
assimilationist of top-down policies that do not tackle the socio-economic conditions and
political subordination of indigenous peoples has proved ineffective to counterbalance
shift to Spanish in Mexico.
Owing to the limitations of these institutional policies, grassroots strategies of
revitalisation with an emphasis on horizontal communicative practices are emerging in
Mexico. These initiatives, which are made up of networks developing in a ‘rhizomatic’,
acentered and non-hierarchical way (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), foreground speakers
rather than institutions as the final agents of language management (Spolsky 2009).
Along these lines, Baldauf (2006) has drawn attention to the importance of micro-
language planning, which, unlike the historically dominant macro-approaches to language
policy and planning, focuses on local contexts, linguistic practices on the ground and
speakers as main actors. To supersede essentialist approaches to language policy and
planning, which in Mexico are epitomised by INALI’s emphasis on standardisation, the
concept of heteroglossia, drawing on the work of Bakhtin (1981), has been suggested as a
more appropriate framework to explain ever more common plurilingual practices on the
ground. Thus, Bailey (2009) argues that heteroglossia puts the emphasis on the social
tensions inherent in variable speech rather than on structural and formal approaches to
languages as abstract and neutral systems of reference. As the Facebook examples below
illustrate, the gist of these communicative exchanges is not the mere use of juxtaposed
linguistic codes, which are sometimes called hybrid or mixed because they do not fit
within the constraints of standardised languages, but rather the complex meanings
inherent in the linguistic repertoire that young actors use to deploy and negotiate their
social identities.
Aside from mostly timid government language policies stemming from both national
and regional institutions, it is through particular and individualistic efforts that the
promotion of Maya is usually undertaken in Yucatán. Unlike in other Mexican states,
there is no significant indigenous political mobilisation in this region. This lack of
organised efforts does not mean that there is not linguistic activism whatsoever in
Yucatán or that some individuals cannot lead movements of language revitalisation. In
this vein, Kroskrity (2009) has noted the importance of individual agency, particularly
linked to the central issue of language ideological change, and the impact that individual
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 3

commitment and efforts may have in revitalisation processes. Similarly, Combs and
Penfield point out that:

All efforts and causes which promote linguistic diversity follow from the development of an
active base consisting of either a single individual or a group, and from the conviction that
taking action is at the core of all efforts to raise awareness about maintaining linguistic
diversity. (2012, 471)

Collaboration and networking are, therefore, critical issues in language promotion, but
these strategies may even be more necessary in the Yucatecan context, where there is a
lack of cohesion and even cooperation among several activists who work for the
promotion of Maya. Be that as it may, social media are being appropriated by Maya
speakers as a catalyst for language advocacy and activism.
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New technologies, social media and language revitalisation

New technologies have become an ever more prominent domain for the promotion of
endangered languages worldwide. Since the seminal article by Buszard-Welcher (2001),
which explored the incipient use of the Internet by Native American language
communities, there has been growing research with various strands based on the
possibilities of new technologies for the revitalisation and, especially, documentation of
minoritised languages. These languages are increasingly present on the Web, a
phenomenon that has gained attention for the potential benefits in language maintenance
and revitalisation, particularly among the youth (Moriarty 2011). Eisenlohr (2004) has
argued that the introduction of subordinated languages in what he calls ‘electronic
mediation’ entails not only actual promotion through functional expansion but also
potential transformation of their ‘ideological valuation’. I show below how a number of
bilingual youngsters are committed to using Maya in social media as a conscious strategy
of revitalisation. I discuss whether such use may help not only revitalise Maya but also
provide a platform for its advocacy. In this sense, it is important to note that, unlike
traditional passive consumption of ‘old’ media, social media offer a range of possibilities
for active engagement by the user, who becomes both a consumer and a producer of
contents. Thus, new electronic media offer possibilities for interaction and constant
creation of contents (Cunliffe 2007; Deuze 2010).
Furthermore, electronic media and communication on the Internet is a productive and
salient field for examining language choice among multilingual users (Leppänen and
Peuronen 2012). In Yucatán, May (2010) has looked at the use of written Maya in emails,
text messages and chat. In his work, he describes the ways in which non-normative uses
of orthographic signs, some of which are built on literacy in Spanish and the hybrid
nature of the messages do not hinder intelligibility. The vague division between the
spoken and written word, the use of Spanish borrowings, inconsistent spelling and non-
standard spelling of Maya are all features that emerge in May’s data and, similarly, in my
own data below, which is based on Facebook posts.
Computer-mediated communication deserves closer inspection not only because of its
centrality in contemporary communication but also because of its rapid evolution,
innovation and extension, which may have practical consequences for the functional
expansion of minoritised languages. The growing availability of the Internet on the
Yucatán Peninsula is a case in point. Wi-Fi connection to the Internet is available for free
in many public parks of Mérida, the capital of Yucatán state and cybercafés have
 4 J. Cru

mushroomed not only in this city but also in many small towns across the Peninsula.
Increasing availability and affordability of mobile phones is a further issue that has a
direct impact on literacy use because text messages are much cheaper than calls and often
preferred for daily communicative exchanges in Yucatán.
In short, social networking sites have become a key domain that generates a myriad of
linguistic uses, all of which are underpinned by language ideologies worth exploring in
their own right. While there is still a dearth of research on this specific area, particularly
as regards indigenous languages of Latin America, recent contributions on European
minority languages such as Welsh (Cunliffe, Morris, and Prys 2013; Johnson 2013),
Luxembourgish (Wagner 2013), and Frisian (Jongbloed-Faber 2014) are helping to fill
that gap. Below, I look in detail at three examples of linguistic practices on Facebook by
bilingual youngsters in their early twenties studying at a Mexican intercultural
university.2
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Methodology
One key research finding of fieldwork undertaken in 2012 among students at the Maya
Intercultural University of Quintana Roo (UIMQRoo) of the Yucatán Peninsula was the
centrality of the use of Facebook in their lives. A questionnaire survey on the use of
Maya on social media I carried out among 30 youngsters taking the degree in Maya
language and culture at that university showed that all of them have a Facebook account,
which is checked at least once a day. Personal contact through fieldwork allowed me to
become ‘friends’ on Facebook as of September 2012 with the majority of students
I talked to during fieldwork. In November 2012, I asked permission to gather all status
updates of three students, Blanca, Clara and Luz during one month. The three profiles
were not chosen randomly but rather on the basis of their frequent use of Maya and their
activist stand on the need to promote that language. In that specific month, out of a total
of 21 status updates, Blanca posted 11 in Spanish, 8 in Maya and 2 that included an
expression in English (my friend, bye); out of 20 updates, Clara used Maya in four posts,
Spanish in 13 and 3 combined both languages; finally, out of 19 updates, Luz wrote three
posts in Maya, nine in Spanish and seven in a mixture of both languages. These
proportions are not necessarily regular throughout the year. In February, for instance,
when UNESCO’s International Mother Tongue Day takes place (in Yucatán is celebrated
for one month), the number of messages in Maya tend to increase. Facebook offers a
variety of methods of communicating with ‘friends’ such as personal messages, chat, wall
posts and status updates. The three samples analysed below belong to the latter type of
communication, which is particularly accessible to the researcher because of its semi-
public nature. From a qualitative approach, I argue that the language ideologies expressed
by these youngsters when writing on Facebook are particularly significant for
revitalisation purposes.

Encouraging the use of Maya on Facebook

Apart from using Spanish, some bilingual youths in Yucatán are writing in Maya on
Facebook as part of their daily plurilingual practices. Maya is also used on other Internet-
based media such as wikis, blogs, chat rooms, etc., but Facebook, as noted, is particularly
salient because of its widespread use and popularity among young people. My discussion
of the Facebook conversations below is based on textual–linguistic analysis, which
continues to be central in much of contemporary discourse analysis and in the domain of
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 5

new technologies in general, despite the growth of multimedia products (Holton 2011).
This analysis does not take into account the whole semiotic environment in which not
only Facebook but also other Internet-based communicative exchanges are embedded and
which increasingly needs a ‘multi-modal’ approach (Blommaert 2011). This approach
may prove particularly productive because of the emergence of new forms of literacy
owing to the continuous development and integration of visual and acoustic elements in
electronic media.
Crucially, the non-institutional and horizontal nature of these conversations on
Facebook and their spontaneity and non-prescriptive language usage which reflect orality,
even if literacy is central, are all features that contrast sharply with normative literacy,
strict separation of codes, and purism, which are part and parcel of language ideologies
underpinning top-down language policy and planning in Mexico (Hill and Hill 1986;
Flores 2009). I maintain that social media represent a mirror of the actual linguistic
repertoires that users, in this case youngsters, deploy in their daily informal commun-
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icative behaviour where, in traditional sociolinguistics terms, code-switching and code-

mixing are the norm rather than the exception (see Carroll [2008] for a similar analysis on
Puerto Rican language use on MySpace.com, a website now on the wane).
While linguistic prejudice against the use of Maya on Facebook is sometimes
expressed by people who do not understand Maya, positive comments about the presence
of this language on Facebook are also frequent. There is no doubt, therefore, that social
media can play a key part in opening up new spaces for the use of written Maya,
particularly among youths. The inclusion of Maya on Facebook can not only be
conducive to language destigmatisation and legitimation, as noted, Maya is mainly used
in its oral form, but also a significant platform for language activism. The following
exchange between Blanca, Sergio and Adrián, which is held both in Maya and in
Spanish, neatly illustrates these points. Maya is in bold, Spanish in normal typeface and
my translation into English in italics. Pseudonyms are used in all the Facebook posts
below.

Post on Blanca’s Facebook Wall (9.11.2012)

Blanca: jach ya’ab in ts’íib máax ku antiken????
I have lots of writing tasks to do. Who can help me????
Sergio: mak in woojwli’ jajaja
I don’t know hahaha
Adrián: es maya? K chido eh!
is it Maya? How nice eh!
Sergio: jajajja asi es amigo jajjajja
hahaha that’s right my friend hahaha
Adrián: Mi admiracion para las personas k ablan ese lenguaje tan chingon! Nta camarada.
My admiration for those people who speak such a cool language! Cool comrade.
Sergio: jjajaja gracias se agradece krnal jejeje
Hahaha thanks it is appreciated buddy hehehe
Blanca: y tambien
Me too
Blanca: Sergio, a’alti’ a amigo ka u t’aan maya xan
Sergio, tell your friend to speak Maya too
Adrián: jejeje k digiste?!! Presumiiiiida jeje ntc
Hehehe what did you say?!! Vaiiiiin hehe jk
Sergio: Dice mi amiga Blanca que tambien hables maya jajajaja
My friend Blanca says that you should speak Maya too
 6 J. Cru

From the linguistic point of view, the exchange by these youngsters is a typical example
of use of non-standard and informal spoken-like varieties in electronic media, such as text
messages, chat rooms and Facebook. Some common features within this communicative
environment are the use of contractions (y for yo, k for que and krnal for carnal); ad hoc
acronyms such as ntc, which means no te creas and is parallel to jk in English, namely,
just kidding; idiosyncratic orthography including non-normative spelling and ‘errors’ in
Spanish and Maya such as digiste for dijiste or ablan for hablan for the former language,
mak instead of ma’ or woojwli’ instead of woojli’ for the latter language; lack of accents,
which are integral to both Spanish and Maya spelling and the presence of slang from
Mexican Spanish such as chido and chingon. This alternative take on writing conventions,
which is obviously neither elite nor institutional, provides a stark contrast with normative,
school-based literacies, which have traditionally been the main focus of official language
policies in Mexico and beyond.
As for the contents, the exchange above turns into a metalinguistic discussion that shows
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the language ideological positions of participants, all of them students in their early twenties.
On the one hand, Blanca begins the conversation in Maya by introducing the mundane topic
of school homework, and Sergio replies to Blanca’s question in Maya. Next, when Adrián
joins in both the use of Maya and the topic of language choice become central. It is because
of Adrián’s astonishment at the use of Maya by his peers that language ideologies are
explicitly played out by the three participants. While Adrián shows a positive attitude
towards the use of Maya by his friends, Sergio needs to translate from Maya into Spanish as
Blanca, after a short contribution in Spanish, switches back to writing in Maya. Acting on
this occasion as a ‘language manager’ (Spolsky 2009), she finally encourages Adrián to use
Maya as well. Significantly, she chooses the verb ‘to speak’ (t’aan) and not ‘to write’ (ts’íib)
in this environment. This exchanges illustrates how, based on linguistic awareness and
activism, some of these youths are becoming key actors to promote written Maya on the
Internet, which is increasing its visibility and raising its status and public profile.

Facebook and Maya language learning

In the second example below, the use of Maya triggers another metalinguistic discussion
that turns into a sort of Maya language lesson and shows again the multilingual nature of
many of these conversations. Maya is in bold, Spanish in normal typeface, English in
original is underlined and my translation into English is in italics:

Post on Clara’s Facebook Wall (27 November 2012)

Clara: Cesar le hace mok a mi k’áan y Clara se va dormir, es justo y necesario.
Ták sáamal.
Cesar ties a knot to my hammock and Clara goes to sleep. It is fair and necessary.
See you tomorrow.
Ana: Ták sáamal, Clara
See you tomorrow, Clara.
Alberto: Tak Saamal es nombre de persona?
Is Tak Saamal the name of a person?
Ana: Ki’ki’ wenel Clara
Sleep well Clara.
Mario: Good Night Little Princess
José: que descanses bonita
Have a good rest, darling
Pedro: jajajaja sale bye Clara dulces sueños
Hahahaha OK bye Clara sweet dreams
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 7

Clara: Estimado Alberto, tak sáamal es hasta mañana. Saludos a todos

Dear Alberto, tak sáamal means see you tomorrow. Greetings to everyone.
Alberto: gracias y como se dice buenos dias?
Thanks and how do you say ‘good morning’?

In this case, Clara posts an update message using both Maya and Spanish within the same
sentence. On the one hand, ‘hacer mok’ follows a productive grammatical structure in
Yucatec Spanish that combines the Spanish verb ‘hacer’(to do, to make) and a
substantivised Maya verb as a complement, in this case, the culturally specific noun
‘mok’, which means tying a knot to hang a hammock (k’áan in Maya). The inclusion of a
loanword (mok) from Maya into Spanish and the use of a ‘genuine’ Maya word (k’áan)
within the same sentence shows the porosity of the use of vernacular speech on the
ground by bilingual speakers. Clara finishes her contribution with a greeting completely
in Maya. Moreover, not only are Maya and Spanish included in this exchange but also
English, a foreign language for all contributors in this exchange. This may be explained
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by the fact that English is a default language that peers are supposed to understand, at
least partially, because it is a ‘cool’ language, especially in this environment.
Aside from this linguistic outline, in this post there is also a metalinguistic
component, which is introduced by Alberto, the only person that does not know Maya
and who is not a student at UIMQRoo. Indeed, Alberto is more interested in learning
some expressions in Maya than in replying to the exchange with greetings, as all the other
participants do. This becomes particularly manifest when he asks how to say ‘good
morning’ in Maya, but the conversation dies out as nobody follows his cue. Alberto’s
contribution clearly points to metalinguistic concerns, rather than the phatic function of
language, which is the baseline of this particular Facebook exchange.
From the perspective of traditional sociolinguistics, this post might be read as an
example of both intersentential and intrasentential code-switching. Four nameable
languages could be distinguished: Maya, Yucatec Spanish, Standard Mexican Spanish,
and English. However, this is arguably a view still rooted in a tradition that considers
languages as bounded objects, sees monolingualism as the default norm and analyses
code-switching and language ‘mixing’ as deviant forms of communication that need
justification. In this vein, Woolard writes:

The fundamental question underlying most anthropologically oriented research on codes-

witching is ‘Why do they do that?’ Such a question seems inescapably to derive from the
profoundly monoglot and largely referentialist outlook of modern language ideologies,
despite linguistic anthropology’s overt rejection of such views. It is when only one code is
believed necessary to get the job done (a job understood as denotational) that the use of more
than one needs explanation. (2004, 74)

To supersede the underlying monoglot ideologies in traditional sociolinguistics pointed

out by Woolard, Khubchandani (2011) has proposed the term ‘code-floating’, which,
unlike ‘code-switching’ and ‘code-mixing’, emphasises the fuzziness and the arbitrariness
of language boundaries. Therefore, in this context a purely structural analysis of
languages as discrete artefacts seems ill-conceived to account for the meaning of the
Facebook post presented above. These exchanges yield a richer and more profound
meaning if we see them from a social constructionist perspective. Hence, heteroglossia
(Bailey 2009), which focuses on the social and political position of participants rather
than on the code they use, may be a more fruitful framework to analyse these
communicative exchanges. As Bailey writes, ‘analytical constructs that are based on
 8 J. Cru

form, such as code-switching, or that imply anterior, pure essences, such as hybridity,
divert attention from the social and political nature of language, behaviour and meaning’
(2009, 271). The playful and messy nature of language use on Facebook does not
preclude, however, the possibility for speakers to be psychologically aware of being
speakers of distinctly nameable codes, a fact that they can indeed use for their own
ideological purposes, language advocacy and revitalisation among them.

Multiple Maya literacies on Facebook

In this third and last example, I shall highlight the ways in which Facebook can be used
to promote plurilingual literacies and raise linguistic awareness among speakers of both
minoritised and, crucially, dominant languages. The following post on Luz’s wall
includes Maya in bold, Spanish in normal typeface, Nahuatl underlined and my
translation into English in italics:
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Post on Luz’s Facebook Wall (30 November 2012)

Luz: Juntúul chan máas ku k’ayiken, áak’ab ku méek’iken, xki’ichpan na’ Uj
úuntiken … Nika’aj in je’els in tuukul. Sáamale’ex. // un grillito me canta, la
noche me abraza, mamá Luna me mece … Voy a descansar mis pensamientos.
Hasta mañana.
A little cricket is singing to me, the night is cuddling me, mother Moon is rocking
me … I am going to let my thoughts rest. See you all tomorrow.
Ana: jaach malo’ob ak’ab ti teech.
Very good. I cuddle you too
Luz: Beey ti’ teech ki’ichpan
Same to you darling
Esteban: Ximocehui ichpocatzintli, ma tonanametztli cuitlahuia motemictli //
Descansa que tus sueños la señora luna cuidara.
Go to sleep and lady moon will look after your dreams
Alejandro: Muy bonito preciosa no sé escribir en maya pero sí se leerlo y me
gustó. Que descanses
Very nice darling I don’t know how to write in Maya but I can read it and I liked
it. Have a nice rest
Luz: Gracias Alejandro, saludos desde Yucatán. Saludos a todos!
Thanks Alejandro. Greetings from Yucatán. Greetings to everyone!
Luz: Pero qué bellos son los idiomas! Gracias por compartir.
How beautiful languages are! Thanks for sharing.

Aside from its plurilingual nature that includes two Mexican indigenous languages
(Yucatec Maya and Nahuatl), at least two striking facts in this exchange need to be noted.
The first is that Luz has decided to translate her opening contributions into Spanish. This
may have to do with the particular nature of the post, which includes poetic verses, rather
than the more usual informal exchanges. The second remarkable feature is the reply from
Esteban to Luz’s post in Nahuatl, which shows how speakers of minoritised languages
can mutually reinforce practices of language promotion on the Internet. Also worth noting
is Alejandro’s positive attitude to the use of Maya on Facebook. Alejandro’s is a case of
receptive literacy skills, namely, being able to read and understand Maya but not write it.
Nonetheless, this allows his participation and inclusion in the exchange and might have
implications for subsequent activation of Maya language production.
These Facebook examples show the possibilities of social media to provide
indigenous languages with a functional space which is modern and cool. Also relevant
is the fact that in this domain, Maya can be used on a par with dominant languages such
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 9

as Spanish and English. This use helps to counterbalance the backwardness often
associated with these languages and promote literacy from the ground up. The fact that a
‘valuation-enhancing effect’ (Eisenlohr 2004) takes place on social media is more
important since the majority of users are young people. Writing about language activism
on the Internet, Crystal (2007) has aptly noted:

It doesn’t matter how much activism you engage in on behalf of the language if you don’t
attract the teenagers, the parents of the future generation of children. And what turns
teenagers on more than the Internet these days? If you can get language out there, the
youngsters are much more likely to think it is cool.

The plurilingual and mixed practices by these youths contrast with concerns about
language boundary maintenance and standardisation that stem from official language
policies in Mexico. These new domains open up particularly important avenues for
language revitalisation in sociolinguistic contexts where it is not uncommon to see cases
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of (re)activation of Maya at adolescence. Much attention has been devoted to children in

processes of language revitalisation, although rarely as active participants with their own
language ideologies (Friedman 2011). However, adolescence stands out as a key period in
life that can have profound implications for language choice. In this vein, Sallabank states
that ‘adolescence is a crucial age for motivation and language consolidation; encouraging
young people to develop their own identification with, and version(s) of, an endangered
language might motivate them to use it more and to create a “language of their own”’
(2012, 118). Studying an indigenous language at an intercultural university is a critical
moment for language reclamation for a number of bilingual youngsters in Yucatán, some
of whom, as shown above, may choose not only to write in Maya, a language which is
overwhelmingly used only in oral form, but also to become language activists.

Conclusion
Unlike top-down language policies in Mexico that focus on formal education, literacy and
legislation, this paper has focused on examples of horizontal use of Yucatec Maya on
Facebook as a non-institutional domain which is particularly popular among youths.
Thus, non-standard language use, written language reflecting orality, mixing and
borrowing from available linguistic resources and grassroots rather than institutional
language management prevail within this environment. Furthermore, an emotional
attachment and an entertaining, even playful, component are preeminent features of the
use of Maya among some bilingual youngsters in this domain.
The exchanges analysed attest to a potential ideological change and a challenge of
existing language regimes in Yucatán based on the engagement of some young Maya
speakers on the Internet. Undoubtedly, the visibility of Maya on Facebook has an
ideological effect that accrues to its legitimacy from the ground up, rather than from
government policies devised within the political framework of the nation-state.
Furthermore, this deterritorialised use of Maya and its inclusion in a globalised and
transnational context need also to be considered because it may encompass Maya
speakers living outside of Yucatán.3 The fact that educated bilingual youths are
particularly keen to engage with new technologies is critical for the prospects of Maya.
Unlike the core home–family–community domain of the reversing language shift
framework (Fishman 1991), social media may seem a peripheral domain for language
revitalisation. However, as Friedman has aptly noted, ‘forces operating outside of the
 10 J. Cru

contexts of home and school, such as peer social networks and popular culture, may
provide the most powerful socialization contexts for adolescents in terms of language
practices’ (2011, 644). Indeed, apart from Facebook, the increasingly embedded presence
of popular culture such as music and film within new technologies bodes well for the
reproduction of minoritised languages (Blommaert 2010). As I have shown, the particular
case of Facebook is not only opening up a productive new space for the use of written
Maya, but it is also a potential catalyst among some youngsters for ethnolinguistic
awareness and even political positioning, which is an essential aspect of language
revitalisation.
While a consciousness of resistance and promotion often underpins the use of Maya
on Facebook, at least among some students at intercultural universities, it remains to be
seen whether a growing activism among youths and an expansion of functional uses are
decisive factors to counterbalance shift to Spanish. Abandonment of Maya mainly stems
from a combination of a lack of instrumental value for upward social mobility and
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widespread stigma still attached to its use, particularly in urban areas. Furthermore, some
authors have pointed out that media are secondary areas for language maintenance
(Fishman 1991) and that too much confidence and hope is often given to the ‘technical
fix’ offered by new technologies (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1998). Despite these
caveats, there is no doubt that old and new media, particularly those in which orality is of
paramount importance, can be fruitful domains for indigenous language revitalisation.
Crucially, the promotion and use of Maya in social networking sites comes primarily
from the grassroots, which stands in stark contrast with tightly controlled mass media
such as television and radio in Mexico.
Furthermore, from the perspective of language ideologies, it may be through the
inclusion of Maya within a multiple linguistic repertoire made up of heteroglossic
practices that this language is to thrive. Heteroglossia refers not only to the simultaneous
use of various linguistic systems but to the social and political nature of speech, which
entails tensions, conflict and struggle (Bailey 2009). In the Facebook examples above, it
is the plurilingual ‘voice’ of users that stands out rather than specific juxtaposed and
bounded languages. In this sense, Blommaert has noted that ‘we need to develop an
awareness that it is not necessarily the language you speak, but how you speak it, when
you can speak it, and to whom that matters. It is a matter of voice, not of language’ (2010,
196, his emphasis).
To conclude, these examples of language use among youths on Facebook sidestep
formal sociolinguistic frameworks that conceive of bilingualism as the sum of two
discrete linguistic codes often standing in an oppositional and unbalanced relationship.
We, therefore, need more flexible models of analysis and intervention for language
revitalisation that take into account the sociopolitical context in which people are
embedded, the communicative resources people make use of and actual plurilingual
practices on the ground.

Notes
1. INDEMAYA stands for Instituto para el Desarrollo de la Cultura Maya del Estado de Yucatán
(Institute for the Development of the Maya Culture of Yucatán State).
2. Several intercultural universities have been set up in Mexico in the last decade. Most of them
are governmentally run and offer similar degrees, such as indigenous language and cultures,
tourism, public local administration, agronomy and community health, which are specifically
geared to indigenous students. See Schmelkes (2009) for a general overview of these
universities within Mexico.
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 11

3. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 Yucatec Maya speakers live in California
(INDEMAYA 2005).

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