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A new study of Classic Maya inscriptions shows that a common word changed 1,600 years ago — its spread across cities reveals how politics and culture influenced language in the ancient lowlands.

Lay Summary This paper studies how the Generic Preposition of Epigraphic Mayan developed during the Classic period (ce 200–900). Reconstructed as *tja to Proto-Mayan, it had shifted to *tə in Proto-Ch’olan, but soon after had diverged into two variants, tə and ti, with the former already attested during the Late Preclassic period (300 bce-ce 200), and the latter appearing first around ce 379 and ce 416.

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