New Mayan Orthography

Since the days of the Conquest, many systems of orthography have been used for rendering Mayan words. In 1989, the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala adopted a new system, promoted by representatives of Mayan communities, which is becoming standard. For the most part the new system looks more the way the sounds are pronounced, but some familiar words now look strange (Uaxactun becomes Waxaktun).

The following letters, representing sounds pronounced approximately as in Spanish, are unchanged from the previous leading system:

a - b -e - i - j (pronounced like hard English h) -
l - m - n - o - p - q (like a k from deep in the throat)
s - t - tz - u - x (pronounced like English sh) - y

These sounds are represented by new letters:

OLD SYSTEM		NEW SYSTEM
c		k
k		k' (k with closed glottis)
pp		p' (p with closed glottis)
q		q' (q with closed glottis; formerly q represented sounds now divided into q and q')
th		t' (t with closed glottis)
dz		tz' (dz with closed glottis)
u		w (as consonant form; formerly u represented sounds now divided into u and w)