I don't know why I find this so impressive. I feel that I have to lay the blame for my impressed-ness squarely in the lap of my years as an American. Coming, as I do, from a culture in which the we're-too-freaking-stupid-to- learn-another-language-and-since-we're-so-great-we-don't-have-to mentality seems to prevail, I find it really cool that the signs at the ruins were all in english, spanish, and maya (probably Yucatecan maya). Ok, Ok, Ok, I have been to American Indian Reservations where the signs are in Lakota or Dakota or Navajo as well as english, so I know it DOES happen here. What can I say? My subjectivity was formed in a matrix of racism and I sort of expect to find racism wherever I go, to the extent that it surprises me when I find some decency and equality. But Ginger pointed out that there are a LOT of signs in spanish in the US, and they are stealthily mushrooming so quietly that I didn't notice the proliferation, but I like it, I like it, me encanta!
An Eddie Izzard quote seems appropriate here:
"The Dutch speak four languages AND smoke marijuana..."
It strikes me as I type, that this post could be very useful if, for some reason, all known references to Yucatecan Maya were to disappear and all the living maya speakers somehow forgot how to speak it and all visual records of the language somehow spontaneously combusted, well, heh heh, I have a virtual Rosetta Stone just waiting for the linguists to pounce.
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