Cenotes

The Maya name “Chichen Itza” means “At the mouth of the well of the Itza.” This derives from chi’, meaning “mouth” or “edge”, and chʼen or chʼeʼen, meaning “well”. Itzá is the name of an ethnic-lineage group that gained political and economic dominance of the northern peninsula. One possible translation for Itza is “enchanter (or enchantment) of the water,”^[5] from its (itz), “sorcerer”, and ha, “water”.^[6]

The name is spelled Chichén Itzá in Spanish, and the accents are sometimes maintained in other languages to show that both parts of the name are stressed on their final syllable. Other references prefer the Maya orthography, Chichʼen Itzaʼ (pronounced [tʃitʃʼen itsáʔ]). This form preserves the phonemic distinction between chʼ and ch, since the base word chʼeʼen (which, however, is not stressed in Maya) begins with a postalveolar ejective affricate consonant. The word “Itzaʼ” has a high tone on the “a” followed by a glottal stop (indicated by the apostrophe).^{[citation needed]}