Yucatan Chamber Choir immortalized the Mexican National Anthem in Maya

Mérida, Yucatán, (November 22, 2021).- The Yucatán Chamber Choir recorded the Mexican National Anthem (HNM) in Maya. The group belonging to the Secretariat of Culture and the Arts (Sedeculta) was invited by the National Institute of Indigenous Languages ​​(Inali) to participate in the National Fair of National Indigenous Languages ​​2021, through a video interpreting the HNM, presented at the social networks of the federal agency, as part of this activity.

The Choir, under the direction of Jonathan Renteria Valdés, was responsible for immortalizing the national piece, which featured the musical transcription by Juan José Guzmán Ramón and the translation by both Santiago Arellano Tuz and Marcelino Ic Hau.

The anthem has the authorization and registration of the Ministry of the Interior (Segob), and was officially sung on February 21, 2019, within the framework of the celebration of the International Day of Mother Languages, led by the State Executive. 

The antecedent of the translation of the HNM into Maya dates back to 1989 when the call for bilingual teachers was carried out by the then Head of Indigenous Education, being selected the work done by Arellano Tuz and Ic Hau, the latter, currently deceased.

The first intonation of the hymn in Maya was carried out on October 2 of that year, within the framework of the XXV Anniversary of Indigenous Education, in the municipality of Maní, but its official record was given on December 21, 2018, nine years after the A process initiated by the ethnolinguist Arellano Tuz before the Inali and continued by the Institute for the Development of Maya Culture of the State (Indemaya).

According to Guzmán Ramón, a member of the Chamber Choir, in order to make it official, five requirements of the Segob had to be met: score in said language, rhythmic syllabic pattern, gloss of the HNM translation, back-translation of the lyrics, and adaptation to the Standards of Writing of the Mayan Language of 2014, a process that was in charge of Graciela Yamily Tec Chan, Felipe de Jesús Castillo Tzec and Milner Rolando Pacab Alcocer.

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