The explanation I have to offer is just the reverse. The use of the terminal _b_ in "Mayab" is probably a dialectic error, other examples of which can be quoted. Thus the writer of the Dictionary of Motul informs us that the form _maab_ is sometimes used for the ordinary negative _ma_, no; but, he adds, it is a word of the lower classes, _es palabra de gente comun_. So I have little doubt but that _Mayab_ is a vulgar form of the word, which may have gradually gained ground. As at present used, the accent usually falls on the first syllable, _Ma´ya_, and the best old authorities affirm this as a rule; but it is a rule subject to exceptions, as at the end of a sentence and in certain dialects Dr. Berendt states that it is not infrequently heard as _Ma´ya´_ or even _Maya´_.[14-1] The meaning and derivation of the word have given rise to the usual number of nonsensical and far-fetched etymologies. The Greek, the Sanscrit, the ancient Coptic and the Hebrew have all been called in to interpret it. I shall refer to but a few of these profitless suggestions. The Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg) quotes as the opinion of Don Ramon de Ordoñez, the author of a strange work on American archæology, called _History of the Heaven and the Earth_, that _Maya_ is but an abbreviation of the phrase _ma ay ha_, which, the Abbé adds, means word for word, _non adest aqua_, and was applied to the peninsula on account of the scarcity of water there.[15-1] Unfortunately that phrase has no such, nor any, meaning in Maya; were it _ma yan haa_, it would have the sense he gives it; and further, as the Abbé himself remarked in a later work, it is not applicable to Yucatan, where, though rivers are scarce, wells and water abound. He therefore preferred to derive it from _ma_ and _ha_, which he thought he could translate either "Mother of the Water," or "Arm of the Land!"[15-2] The latest suggestion I have noticed is that of Eligio Ancona, who, claiming that _Mayab_ is the correct form, and that this means "not numerous," thinks that it was applied to the first native settlers of the land, on account of the paucity of their numbers![15-3] All this seems like learned trifling. The name may belong to that ancient dialect from which are derived many of the names of the days and months in the native calendar, and which, as an esoteric language, was in use among the Maya priests, as was also one among the Aztecs of Mexico. Instances of this, in fact, are very common among the American aborigines, and no doubt many words were thus preserved which could not be analyzed to their radicals through the popular tongue.