MEXICO CITY (AP) The protagonists of one of Mexico's newest soap operas go through love, betrayal and family problems, a typical story line for the popular genre, except they do it in an ancient language.
"Baktun" (bak-TOON) is the first telenovela entirely in the Mayan language to air in Mexico in an effort to save the language from extinction.
"There are a lot of Mayan speakers who won't speak the language," said Hilario Chi Canul, the male lead and script writer. "The language is not lost. We who speak it are the ones who are lost."
Director and producer Bruno Carcamo said the soap opera, which is shown with Spanish subtitles, gives Mayan-speaking Mexicans a show in which they can see and hear themselves. He hopes it will encourage people in Mayan communities to speak in their mother tongue.
The series follows the life of a young man who left his village in the Yucatan Peninsula to work as a cook in New York, where he became estranged from his family and began to forget how to speak Mayan. Upon his return, he learns the importance of his language and culture while fighting his brother for his childhood love.