Is it Maya or Mayan? ...

To be clear, Maya is not a name the ancient people recognised for their culture/civilisation. They were distinct groups. As such, it is a name whose application has become a general but not complete concensus!

But let's keep this simple.

Maya is the singular and plural noun...
She is Maya, they are Maya.

Maya is also the adjective...
Maya culture, Maya temples, Maya calendar, Maya way of life, Maya farming.

Mayan is only used as an adjective when talking about grouping the thirty something languages into one...
The Mayan language.

However, when talking about the individual languages, it's back to Maya as the adjective...
The Yucatec Maya. (Although to complicate things, the Yucatec Maya simply refer to their language as Maya!)


Have a look at our KS2 Maya workshop...