Symbols
78Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Mam alphabet
Capital and small letters in Mam order. Mam needs no accented letter: its special letters are pairs and the apostrophe. A doubled vowel (aa ee ii oo uu) is a long vowel, and ch, ky, tx, tz, xh and every consonant with an apostrophe (b' ch' k' ky' q' t' tx' tz') count as single letters: type them as two or three keys from this grid. C, H and Z never stand alone; D, F, G, V and Ñ appear only in Spanish names and loanwords.
The glottal mark
The apostrophe that makes b' ch' k' ky' q' t' tx' tz' and stands alone for the glottal stop. The ALMG prints the plain '; ʼ is the Unicode letter apostrophe; ’ is what phones and word processors put in by themselves.
Punctuation
Mam texts follow Spanish punctuation, so questions and exclamations open upside down.
Where it's spoken
Western Guatemala, and across the border in Chiapas, Mexico. In Guatemala prices are in quetzales, written with the plain letter Q from the alphabet above (Q25); in Mexico in pesos, written $.
Maya numerals
Dots are ones, bars are fives, the shell is zero; Maya counting goes in twenties.
The Mam world
Maize; backstrap weaving; the Cuchumatanes mountains and the horse race of Todos Santos Cuchumatán on 1 November; Tajumulco, the highest volcano in Central America; and the coffee of Huehuetenango and San Marcos.
On the map
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The Mam language alphabet, letter by letter
Mam is a Maya language of the western highlands of Guatemala. Guatemala made a set of Maya-language alphabets official in 1987; the current practical Mam alphabet published by ALMG has 32 graphemes, including ẍ (x with a diaeresis), alongside five vowels and digraphs. Because it includes ẍ, not every Mam grapheme is on a plain English keyboard; digraphs and glottal marks are also part of the spelling.
In the current ALMG practical alphabet the graphemes are a, b’, ch, ch’, e, i, j, k, k’, ky, ky’, l, m, n, o, p, q, q’, r, s, t, t’, tx, tx’, tz, tz’, u, w, x, ẍ, y and ’ (glottal stop). It has 27 consonants and five simple vowels; ch, ky, tx and tz are digraph graphemes, and an apostrophe marks a glottalized consonant or glottal stop. Within this alphabet, C and H occur in ch and ch’, while Z occurs in tz and tz’; xh is not a grapheme. D, F, G, V and Ñ are not in the alphabet.
How Mam is written: ky, tx, ẍ and the apostrophe
The current ALMG practical alphabet lists five vowel graphemes: a e i o u; it does not include doubled forms such as aa ee ii oo uu. ALMG's grammar says Mam writing does not place two vowels together, so doubled vowels should not be presented as current standard spellings.
Three contrasts distinguish Mam spellings from those of K'iche', Kaqchikel and other Maya languages farther east. ky is a k with the tongue raised towards the palate, close to the start of English cute. tx is a ch made with the tip of the tongue curled back, a retroflex sound, and it stands beside plain ch as in church. x and ẍ are two different sh-like sounds: x is retroflex and ẍ is plain. Q'anjob'al, Mam's neighbour in Huehuetenango, uses the same tx. The rest follow the Maya pattern: j is the throaty sound of Spanish j, w is English w, tz is the ts of cats, and q is a k made further back in the throat, never followed by a silent u as in Spanish que.
What the apostrophe does in b' ch' k' ky' q' t' tx' tz'
The apostrophe is a letter in Mam, not decoration. After ch k ky q t tx tz it marks an ejective: the throat closes, the air in the mouth is squeezed, and the consonant comes out with a small pop. After b it marks the Maya b, made with the throat closed and the air drawn inward, so a plain b without an apostrophe is not a Mam letter. On its own, between vowels or at the end of a word, ' is the glottal stop, the catch in the middle of English uh-oh.
Three characters look like it. The current ALMG grammar prints the glottal mark as ’ ; the plain typewriter apostrophe ' is a common keyboard substitute. The modifier letter apostrophe ʼ is a Unicode modifier letter used in some orthographies for a glottal stop inside a word. Phones and word processors may automatically replace a straight apostrophe with ’. The characters can represent the same glottal mark, but tx' and tx’ are two different strings to a computer, so choose one form and use it consistently.
How to type Mam letters, the apostrophe and ¿ ¡
On an ordinary English keyboard, type digraphs such as ky and tx as two keys, and add an apostrophe for b’ or tx’; the letter ẍ needs a Unicode input method or copying from the grid above. The ALMG grammar prints the glottal mark as ’ , while the plain ' is a common keyboard substitute. For ʼ , type 02BC and press AltX in Word, or use ʼ in HTML; for ’, use Alt0146 on Windows or OptionShift] on a Mac. To keep the straight one on a phone, switch off smart punctuation, or copy the apostrophe from the grid above.
On the Latin American and Spanish keyboard layouts used in Guatemala and Mexico, ¿ and ¡ have keys of their own. On a US keyboard ¿ is Alt0191 and ¡ is Alt0161 on the number pad, or OptionShift? and Option1 on a Mac; on a phone, hold down ? or ! to find the upside-down mark. In HTML they are ¿ and ¡.
Where the Mam language is spoken
The Mam language is spoken in the western highlands of Guatemala : across much of Huehuetenango, including the Cuchumatanes mountains , in San Marcos around the volcano Tajumulco , and in Quetzaltenango. CLDR estimates about 840,000 speakers, which puts Mam with K'iche', Q'eqchi' and Kaqchikel among the biggest Maya languages. Mam is also spoken across the border in Chiapas, Mexico , and by Mam families who have emigrated to the United States, notably to Oakland, California. Most speakers also speak Spanish, so Mam texts open questions and exclamations with ¿ and ¡, and prices are written in quetzales with a plain Q, Q25, or in Mexican pesos with .
Mam gives its name to the Mamean branch of the Maya family; its closest relatives are Tektitek, Awakatek and Ixil, spoken nearby in Huehuetenango and Quiché. Q'anjob'al, its neighbour to the north, shares the retroflex tx. The K'iche', Kaqchikel, Q'eqchi', Achi and Q'anjob'al collections cover the wider family, all written with the same apostrophe, and the Guatemala collection has the country's flag, food and other emoji.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyMam Language Alphabet combos
11Worth knowing
- Zaculeu, the ruined city just outside Huehuetenango, was a capital of the Mam before the Spanish conquest. It fell to a Spanish force under Gonzalo de Alvarado after a siege of several months in the 1520s, and its restored pyramids can be visited today.
- Volcán Tajumulco, in the Mam-speaking department of San Marcos, rises about 4,220 metres and is the highest peak in Central America.
- In the Mam town of Todos Santos Cuchumatán, riders gallop back and forth along a course on 1 November, All Saints' Day; the race is a highlight of the town's All Saints' festival, and the men's traje with red-and-white striped trousers is distinctive to Todos Santos.
- The current ALMG practical Mam alphabet has 32 graphemes, including ẍ (x with a diaeresis), so it includes a marked letter that is not on a plain English keyboard.
- The Maya numerals 𝋠 to 𝋳 entered Unicode only in 2018, in version 11.0, so they may show as boxes in fonts or on older systems that lack them.
Questions people ask
7What is the Mam language alphabet?
The current ALMG practical alphabet uses a, b’, ch, ch’, e, i, j, k, k’, ky, ky’, l, m, n, o, p, q, q’, r, s, t, t’, tx, tx’, tz, tz’, u, w, x, ẍ, y and ’ (glottal stop). It has 27 consonants and five vowels; digraphs and apostrophe-marked consonants are graphemes in the alphabet.
What is Mam language?
Mam is a Maya language of western Guatemala, spoken mainly in Huehuetenango, San Marcos and Quetzaltenango and across the border in Chiapas, Mexico. CLDR estimates about 840,000 speakers. It is a language of its own, not a dialect of Spanish or of another Maya language.
Where is Mam spoken?
In the western highlands of Guatemala, above all in Huehuetenango, San Marcos and Quetzaltenango; in Chiapas, Mexico; and among Mam families in the United States, notably in Oakland, California.
How is Mam language written?
In the current ALMG practical alphabet, Mam uses Latin letters including ẍ (x with a diaeresis). Its five vowel graphemes are a, e, i, o and u; doubled vowels are not listed in the current alphabet. The digraphs ch, ky, tx and tz and the apostrophe-marked consonants are graphemes. Questions and exclamations use ¿ and ¡ as in Spanish.
Mam language vs Spanish: are they related?
No. Mam belongs to the Maya family; its closest relative is Tektitek (Teko), while Awakatek and Ixil are members of the wider Mamean family. It shares the Latin alphabet and ¿ ¡ with Spanish and has taken loanwords from it, but its grammar and most of its words are Maya.
What does the apostrophe mean in Mam words?
It is a letter. After ch, k, ky, q, t, tx or tz it makes the consonant ejective, with a small pop from the throat; after b it marks the Maya b; on its own it is the glottal stop, the catch in 'uh-oh'.
How do I type the Mam apostrophe?
The ALMG grammar prints the glottal mark as ’ ; the plain ' key is a common substitute. For the Unicode modifier letter apostrophe ʼ, type 02BC then AltX in Word, use ʼ in HTML, or copy it from this page.
