Presented at UCLA's SLIME 3.
We describe the MesoSign project, which aims to document sign language(s) used in Highland Maya communities. By hypothesis, as shared sign languages, they have emerged in contact with the gesture systems of hearing speakers of Mayan languages, like Kaqchikel. We present the first fruits of our investigation of gesture. The primary conclusion is that monomodal speakers of Kaqchikel gesture differently (though in an overlapping way) in comparison with bimodal bilingual Kaqchikel speakers.