In the Yucatec peninsula, Spanish and Yucatec Maya coexist in a diglossic context where Spanish is considered the high prestige variety, while Yucatec Maya is mainly spoken in informal, private settings. Even though there have been major changes in language policy over the last 25 years in order to protect Mexican indigenous languages, the number of Maya speakers is still declining. This article examines the effects of different economic factors on the vitality of Yucatec Maya, whose monetary, functional and idealistic values are being negotiated on the «linguistic market». From the region’s industrial and infrastructural transformation in the 1960 s on, Yucatec Maya has been increasingly exposed to general tendencies of globalization (e.g. migration). Under the present circumstances, tourism can be seen as a double-edged sword for Yucatán: On the one hand, it is the peninsula’s main source of income, but on the other, it brings with it negative consequences for language use, the Maya speaker’s language (self) awareness and related processes of identity construction.

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