Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala


The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, or ALMG is a Guatemalan organisation that regulates the use of the 22 Mayan languages spoken within the borders of the republic. It has expended particular efforts on standardising the various writing systems used. Another of its functions is to promote Mayan culture, which it does by providing courses in the country's various Mayan languages and by training Spanish-Mayan interpreters.
It was founded on 16 November 1990 as an autonomous state organization, following publication of the Ley de la Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, which had been passed by Congress the previous October.
It is headquartered in Guatemala City's Zone 10, in what was formerly the official residence of the Minister of Defence at the time of the Civil War, during which the government pursued a policy of genocide against the country's indigenous Maya population.

Orthography

The ALMG have developed the most widely used orthographies for the Mayan languages. The Mayan languages in Mexico use different orthographies developed by INALI.
For the languages that make a distinction between palato-alveolar and retroflex affricates and fricatives the ALMG suggests the following set of conventions.
ALMGIPAALMGIPAALMGIPA
chchʼx
txtxʼxh