Editing Mayan languages (section)

===Colonial period===
During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all [[Indigenous languages of the Americas|indigenous]] languages were eclipsed by [[Spanish language|Spanish]], which became the new prestige language.  The use of Mayan languages came to an end in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature. Yet the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others,<ref group=notes>The last independent Maya kingdom ([[Tayasal]]) was not conquered until 1697, some 170 years after the first ''[[conquistador]]es'' arrived. During the Colonial and Postcolonial periods, Maya peoples periodically rebelled against the colonizers, such as the [[Caste War of Yucatán]], which extended into the 20th century.</ref> and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of [[monolingual]] speakers.  The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language. While a number of Mayan languages are [[moribund language|moribund]] or are considered [[endangered language|endangered]], others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society.<ref group=notes>Grenoble & Whaley (1998) characterized the situation this way: "Mayan languages typically have several hundreds of thousands of speakers, and a majority of Mayas speak a Mayan language as a first language. The driving concern of Maya communities is not to revitalize their language but to buttress it against the increasingly rapid spread of Spanish ... [rather than being] at the end of a process of language shift, [Mayan languages are] ... at the beginning."{{harvtxt|Grenoble|Whaley|1998|pages=xi–xii}}</ref>