Yucatec Maya Sermon Translation

Why Yucatec Maya is its own category

Yucatec Maya is not Yucatecan Spanish, and it is not the same as K'iche', Q'eqchi', or Mam — those are separate Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala. Maaya T'aan has its own glottalized consonants, vowel length distinctions, and a deeply embedded prophetic vocabulary that pre-dates the conquest by a thousand years. Words like Yuum K'iin (Lord of the Day), óol (spirit, will, breath), and ki'imak óolal (joy, literally 'sweet spirit') carry covenantal weight that Spanish translations smooth over. Acts 2 was tuned on the Sociedad Bíblica de México Yucatec New Testament, contemporary preaching from Casa de Oración congregations in Mérida, and the Maya hymnody used across Quintana Roo. Your congregation will hear the gospel in vocabulary their ancestors already used to talk about God.

Built for Yucatán mission churches

The pattern we see most: a sending church in Texas, Florida, or central Mexico partners with a mission church somewhere on the peninsula. The pastor preaches in Spanish, a bilingual deacon tries to interpret on the fly, and the Maya-speaking elders nod politely while missing 60% of the sermon. Acts 2 ends that compromise. Set up takes ten minutes. Your sermon streams in Maaya T'aan to every phone in the room — and to satellite congregations in nearby pueblos that could never afford a dedicated translator. Mission churches in Chemax, Tizimín, and José María Morelos are already using Acts 2 to multiply one preaching team across five or six villages on a Sunday morning.

The cost math missions directors actually need

A qualified Spanish-Yucatec Maya church interpreter, when you can find one, runs $80 to $150 per hour in Mérida and Cancún. For a one-week missions trip with two services a day, that is $1,800 to $3,500 — and that is assuming the interpreter is available, knows your theological vocabulary, and does not get sick. Acts 2 charges roughly $0.005 per minute of translated audio. A full week of services translates for under $5. We are not trying to undercut human interpreters by a margin — we are trying to make Yucatec Maya church AI translation so cheap that it stops being a budget line at all.

Live captions, not a synthetic voice

Acts 2 does not ship a voice it cannot do well. Yucatec Maya has no production-grade text-to-speech we would put in front of a congregation, so we do not fake one. What you get instead is live Yucatec Maya captions on every phone in the room, generated as you preach — your own voice carries the room out loud, and the translation runs in text alongside it. Peninsula pastors told us the same thing that made this decision easy: older Maya speakers have an immediate ear for inauthenticity, and a canned text-to-speech voice gets rejected within thirty seconds. Captions in their own language do not get rejected. When Yucatec Maya voice synthesis reaches a standard we would stake a pulpit on, we will ship it and say so plainly.

Frequently asked questions