Information about Mayan Script
| Maya | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Alternative - Logosyllabic (used both Logograms and syllabic characters) | |
| Languages | Mayan languages | |
| Time period | 3rd century BCE to 16th century CE | |
| ISO 15924 | Maya | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
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Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico
The languages
It is now thought that the codices and other Classic texts were written in a literary form of the Ch'olti' language. It is possible that the Maya elite spoke this language as a lingua franca over the entire Maya-speaking area, but also that texts were written in other Mayan languages of the Peten and Yucatan, especially Yucatec. There is also some evidence that the script may have been occasionally used to write Mayan languages of the Guatemalan Highlands.[1] However, if other languages were written, they may have been written by Ch'olti scribes, and therefore have Ch'olti elementsStructure
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Maya writing consisted of a highly elaborate set of glyphs which were laboriously painted on ceramics, walls or bark-paper codices, carved in wood or stone, or molded in stucco. Carved and molded glyphs were painted, but the paint has not often survived.
About three-quarters or more of Maya writing can now be read with varying degrees of certainty, enough to give a comprehensive idea of its structure.
The Maya script was a logosyllabic system. Individual symbols ("glyphs") could represent either a word (actually a morpheme) or a syllable; indeed, the same glyph could often be used for both. For example, the calendaric glyph MANIK’ was also used to represent the syllable chi. (It's customary to write logographic readings in all capitals and phonetic readings in italics.) It is possible, but not certain, that these conflicting readings arose as the script was adapted to new languages, as also happened with Japanese kanji. There was ambiguity in the other direction as well: Different glyphs could be read the same way. For example, half a dozen apparently unrelated glyphs were used to write the very common third person pronoun u-.
Maya was usually written in blocks arranged in columns two blocks wide, read as follows:
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Maya inscriptions were most often written in columns two glyphs wide, with each such column read left to right, top to bottom
Within each block, glyphs were arranged top-to-bottom and left-to-right, superficially rather like Korean Hangul syllabic blocks. However, in the case of Maya, each block tended to correspond to a noun or verb phrase such as his green headband. Also, glyphs were sometimes conflated, where an element of one glyph would replace part of a second. Conflation occurs in other scripts: For example, in medieval Spanish manuscripts the word de 'of' was sometimes written à (a D with the arm of an E). An English example is the ampersand (&) which is a conflation of the Norman French "et". In place of the standard block configuration Maya was also sometimes written in a single row or column, 'L', or 'T' shapes. These variations most often appeared when they would better fit the surface being inscribed.
Maya glyphs were fundamentally logographic. Generally the glyphs used as phonetic elements were originally logograms that stood for words that were themselves single syllables, syllables that either ended in a vowel or in a weak consonant such as y, w, h, or glottal stop. For example, the logogram for 'fish fin' (Maya [kah] — found in two forms, as a fish fin and as a fish with prominent fins), came to represent the syllable ka. These syllabic glyphs performed two primary functions: They were used as phonetic complements to disambiguate logograms which had more than one reading, as also occurred in Egyptian, and they were used to write grammatical elements such as verbal inflections which did not have dedicated logograms, as in modern Japanese. For example, b'alam 'jaguar' could be written as a single logogram, BALAM, complemented phonetically as ba-BALAM, or BALAM-ma, or ba-BALAM-ma, or written completely phonetically as ba-la-ma.
Phonetic glyphs stood for simple consonant-vowel or bare-vowel syllables. However, Mayan phonotactics is slightly more complicated than this: Most Maya words end in a consonant, not a vowel, and there may be sequences of two consonants within a word as well, as in xolte’ [ʃolteʔ] 'scepter', which is CVCCVC. When these final consonants were sonorants (l, m, n) or glottals (h, ’) they were sometimes ignored ("underspelled"), but more often final consonants were written, which meant that an extra vowel was written as well. This was typically an "echo" vowel that repeated the vowel of the previous syllable. That is, the word [kah] 'fish fin' would be written in full as ka-ha. However, there are many cases where some other vowel was used, and the orthographic rules for this are only partially understood. Here's our current understanding:
- A CVC syllable was written CV-CV, where the two vowels (V) were the same: yo-po [yop] 'leaf'
- A syllable with a long vowel (CVVC) was written CV-Ci, unless the long vowel was [i], in which case it was written CiCa: ba-ki [baak] 'captive', yi-tzi-na [yihtziin] 'younger brother'
- A syllable with a glottalized vowel (CV’C or CV’VC) was written with a final a if the vowel was [e, o, u], or with a final u if the vowel was [a] or [i]: hu-na [hu’n] 'paper', ba-tz’u [ba’tz’] 'howler monkey'.
- ba-ka [bak]
- ba-ki [baak]
- ba-ku [ba’k] or [ba’ak]
- ba-ke [baakel] (underspelled)
See here for a more substantial discussion and, from page 70 on, a partial list of glyphs and glyph blocks.
Emblem glyphs
An 'emblem glyph" is a kind of royal title. It consists of a word ajaw – a Classic Maya term for “lord” of yet unclear etymology but well-attested in Colonial sources [2] – and a place name that precedes the word ajaw and functions as an adjective. An expression “Boston lord” would be a perfect English analogy. Sometimes, the title is introduced by an adjective k’uhul “holy” or “sacred”, just as if someone wanted to say “holy Boston lord”. Of course, an "emblem glyph" is not a "glyph" at all: it can be spelled with any number of syllabic or logographic signs and several alternative spellings are attested for the words k’uhul and ajaw, which form the stable core of the title. The term "emblem glyph" simply reflects the times when mayanists could not read Classic Maya inscriptions and had to come up with some nicknames isolating certain recurrent structural components of the written narratives.)
Tikal or "Mutal" Emblem Glyph, Stela in Tikal's Museum
The debate on the nature of "emblem glyphs" received a new spin with the monograph by Stuart and Houston.[8] The authors convincingly demonstrated that there were lots of place names-proper, some real, some mythological, mentioned in the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Some of these place names also appeared in the "emblem glyphs," some were attested in the "titles of origin" (various expressions like “a person from Boston”), but some were not incorporated in personal titles at all. Moreover, the authors also highlighted the cases when the "titles of origin" and the "emblem glyphs" did not overlap, building upon an earlier research by Houston.[9] Houston noticed that the establishment and spread of the Tikal-originated dynasty in the Petexbatun region was accompanied by the proliferation of rulers using the Tikal "emblem glyph" placing political and dynastic ascendancy above the current seats of rulership. [10]
History
It was until recently thought that the Maya may have adopted writing from the Olmec or Epi-Olmec. However, recent discoveries have pushed back the origin of Mayan writing by several centuries, and it now seems possible that the Maya were the ones who invented writing in Mesoamerica.[11]Knowledge of the Maya writing system continued into the early colonial era and reportedly a few of the early Spanish priests who went to Yucatán learned it. However, as part of his campaign to eradicate pagan rites, Bishop Diego de Landa ordered the collection and destruction of written Maya works, and a sizeable number of Maya codices were destroyed. Later, seeking to use their native language to convert the Maya to Christianity, he derived what he believed to be a Maya "alphabet" (the so-called de Landa alphabet). Although the Maya did not actually write alphabetically, nevertheless he recorded a glossary of Maya sounds and related symbols, which was long dismissed as nonsense but eventually became a key resource in deciphering the Maya script, though it has itself not been completely deciphered. The difficulty was that there was no simple correspondence between the two systems, and the names of the letters of the Spanish alphabet meant nothing to Landa's Maya scribe, so Landa ended up asking the equivalent of write H: a-i-tee-cee-aitch "aitch", and glossed a part of the result as "H".
Landa was also involved in creating a Latin orthography for the Yukatek Maya language, meaning that he created a system for writing Yukatek in the Latin alphabet. This was the first Latin orthography for any of the Mayan languages, which number around thirty.
Only four Maya codices are known to have survived the conquistadors. Most surviving texts are found on pottery recovered from Maya tombs, or from monuments and stelae erected in sites which were abandoned or buried before the arrival of the Spanish.
Knowledge of the writing system was lost, probably by the end of the 16th century. Renewed interest in it was sparked by published accounts of ruined Maya sites in the 19th century.
Decipherment
The decipherment of the writing was a long and laborious process. Nineteenth century and early 20th century investigators managed to decode the Maya numbers and portions of the texts related to astronomy and the Maya calendar, but understanding of most of the rest long eluded scholars. A major role in deciphering mayan hieroglyphic writing was played by Yuri Knorosov.[12] In 1952 he published a paper "Ancient Writing of Central America" arguing that the so-called "de Landa alphabet" contained in Bishop Diego de Landa's manuscript Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán was actually made of syllabic, rather than alphabetic symbols. He further improved his decipherment technique in his 1963 monograph "The Writing of the Maya Indians"[13] and published translations of mayan manuscripts in his 1975 work "Maya Hieroglyphic Manuscripts". In the 1960s progress revealed the dynastic records of Maya rulers. Since the early 1980s it has been demonstrated that most of the previously unknown symbols form a syllabary, and progress in reading the Maya writing has advanced rapidly since.The Maya may seem to have inherited some elements, and perhaps the entire basis, of their ancient writing system from the Olmecs,[14] which was significantly modified and expanded by the Maya of the Pre-Classic era. Pre-Classic texts are less numerous and less well understood by archaeologists than the later Classic and Post-Classic texts. (However, the Isthmian (or Epi-Olmec) script once thought of as a possible direct ancestor of the Mayan script is now known to be several centuries too recent, and may instead be a descendant.) Other related and nearby Mesoamerican cultures of the period were also heirs to the Olmec writing system, and developed parallel systems which shared key attributes (such as the base-twenty numerical system written with a system of bars and dots). However, it is generally believed that the Maya developed the only complete writing system in Mesoamerica, meaning that they were the only civilization that could write everything they could say.
Other breakthroughs
As Knorosov's early essays contained few new readings, and the Soviet editors added propagandistic claims to the effect that Knorosov was using a peculiarly "Marxist-Leninist" approach to decipherment, many Western Mayanists simply dismissed Knorosov's work. However, in the 1960s more came to see the syllabic approach as potentially fruitful, and possible phonetic readings for symbols whose general meaning was understood from context began to be developed. Prominent older epigrapher J. Eric S. Thompson was one of the last major opponents of Knorosov and the syllabic approach. Thompson's disagreements are sometimes said to have held back advances in decipherment.[15]In 1959, examining what Russian-American scholar Tatiana Proskouriakoff called "a peculiar pattern of dates" on stone monument inscriptions at the Classic Maya site of Piedras Negras, Proskouriakoff determined that these represented events in the life-span of an individual, rather than relating to religion, astronomy, or prophecy, as held by the "old school" exemplified by Thompson. This proved to be true of many Maya inscriptions, and revealed the Maya epigraphic record to be one relating actual histories of ruling individuals: dynastic histories similar in nature to those recorded in literate human cultures throughout the world. Suddenly, the Maya entered written history.[16]
Although it was now clear what was on many Maya inscriptions, they still could not literally be read. However, further progress was made during the 1960s and 1970s, using a multitude of approaches including pattern analysis, de Landa's "alphabet," Knorosov's breakthroughs, and others. In the story of Maya decipherment, the work of archaeologists, art historians, epigraphers, linguists, and anthropologists cannot be separated. All contributed to a process that was truly and essentially multidisciplinary. Key figures included David Kelley, Ian Graham, Gilette Griffin, and Michael Coe.
Dramatic breakthroughs occurred in the 1970's - in particular, at the first Mesa Redonda de Palenque, a scholarly conference organized by Merle Greene Robertson at the Classic Maya site of Palenque held in December, 1973. A working group was led by Linda Schele, an art historian and epigrapher at the University of Texas at Austin, which included Floyd Lounsbury, a linguist from Yale, and Peter Mathews, then an undergraduate student of David Kelley's at the University of Calgary (whom Kelley sent because he could not attend). In one afternoon they managed to decipher the first dynastic list of Maya kings - the ancient kings of the city of Palenque. By identifying a sign as an important royal title (now read as the recurring name k'inich), the group was able to identify and "read" the life histories (from birth, to accession to the throne, to death) of six kings of Palenque.
From that point, progress proceeded at an exponential pace, not only in the decipherment of the Maya glyphs, but also towards the construction of a new, historically-based understanding of Maya civilization. The "old school" continued to resist the results of the new scholarship for some time. A decisive event which helped to turn the tide in favor of the new approach occurred in 1986, at an exhibition entitled "". It was organized by InterCultura and the Kimbell Art Museum and curated by Schele and Yale art historian Mary Miller. This exhibition and attendant catalogue - and international publicity - revealed to a wide audience the new world which had latterly been opened up by progress in decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics. Not only could a real history of ancient America now be read and understood, but the light it shed on the material remains of the Maya showed them to be real, recognisable individuals. They stood revealed as a people with a history like that of all other human societies: full of wars, dynastic struggles, shifting political alliances, complex religious and artistic systems, expressions of personal property and ownership, and so forth. Moreover, the new interpretation, as the exhibition demonstrated, made sense out of many works of art whose meaning had been unclear, and showed how the material culture of the Maya represented a fully-integrated cultural system and world view. Gone was the old Thompson view of the Maya as peaceable astronomers without conflict or other attributes characteristic of most human societies.
However, three years later in 1989, a final counter-assault was launched by supporters who were still resisting the modern decipherment interpretation. This occurred at a conference at Dumbarton Oaks. It did not directly attack the methodology or results of decipherment, but instead contended that the ancient Maya texts had indeed been read but were "epiphenomenal". This argument was extended from a populist perspective to say that the deciphered texts tell us only about the concerns and beliefs of the society's elite, and not about the ordinary Maya. Michael Coe in opposition to this idea described "epiphenomenal" as:
- a ten penny word meaning that Maya writing is only of marginal application since it is secondary to those more primary institutions - economics and society - so well studied by the dirt archaeologists.
Progress in decipherment continues at a rapid pace today, and it is generally agreed by scholars that over 90 percent of the Maya texts can now be read with reasonable accuracy. As of 2004, at least one phonetic glyph was known for each of the syllables marked in in this chart:
(’) b ch ch’ h j k k’ l m n p p’ s t t’ tz tz’ w x y a • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • e • • • • • • • • • • • • i • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • o • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • u • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Current leaders in the field of interpreting Maya culture and Maya decipherment include many archaeologists, epigraphers, linguists, and art historians. Key names working at present are:- David Friedel at SMU
- David Stuart at the University of Texas
- Nikolai Grube at the University of Bonn, Germany
- Alfonso Lacadena at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid
- Simon Martin at the University of Pennsylvania Museum
- William Fash at Harvard University
- Diane Chase and Arlen Chase at the University of Central Florida
- Stephen Houston at Brown University
- Arthur Demarest at Vanderbilt University
- Robert Sharer at the University of Pennsylvania,
- William Sanders of Pennsylvania State University,
- Karl Taube at the University of California, Riverside
- Marc Zender at Harvard, Peabody Museum
- Dmitri Beliaev, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow
- linguists Nicholas Hopkins and Katherine Josserand,
- linguist John Robertson at Brigham Young University
- linguist Søren Wichmann the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig.
Footnotes
1. ^ Kettunen and Helmke (2005, p.12)
2. ^ Lacadena GarcÃa-Gallo, A. and A. Ciudad Ruiz (1998). Reflexiones sobre la estructura polÃtica maya clásica. AnatomÃa de una Civilización: Aproximaciones Interdisciplinarias a la Cultura Maya. A. Cuidad Ruiz, M. I. Ponce de León and M. MartÃnez MartÃnez. Madrid, Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas: 31-64.
3. ^ Berlin, H. (1958). "El Glifo Emblema en las inscripciones Maya." Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris 47: 111-119.
4. ^ Marcus, J. (1976). Emblem and state in the classic Maya Lowlands : an epigraphic approach to territorial organization. Washington, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University.
5. ^ Marcus, J. (1973) Territorial Organization of the Lowland Classic Maya. Science. 1973 Jun 1;180 (4089):pp. 911-916
6. ^ See Mathews (1991)
7. ^ Houston, S. D. (1986). Problematic emblem glyphs : examples from Altar de Sacrificios, El Chorro, RÃo Azul, and Xultun. Washington, D.C., Center for Maya Research.
8. ^ Stuart, D. and S. D. Houston (1994). Classic Maya place names. Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.
9. ^ Houston (1993; in particular, pp.97–101).
10. ^ Source: A.Tokovinine(2006)People from a place: re-interpreting Classic Maya "Emblem Glyphs". Paper presented at the 11th European Maya Conference "Ecology, Power, and Religion in Maya Landscapes", Malmö University, Sweden, December 4-9, 2006
11. ^ See Saturno, et al. (2006).
12. ^ Yuri Knorosov at Britannica
13. ^ (Russian)Yuri Knorosov
14. ^ Schele and Friedel (1990), Soustelle (1984).
15. ^ Coe 1992, pp. 125-144
16. ^ Coe 1992, pp. 167-184
References
- Coe, Michael D. (1992). Breaking the Maya Code. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05061-9.
- Houston, Stephen D. (1986). Problematic Emblem Glyphs: Examples from Altar de Sacrificios, El Chorro, Rio Azul, and Xultun (PDF), Mesoweb online facsimile edition, Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, 3., Washington D.C: Center for Maya Research. ISBN B0006EOYNY.
- Houston, Stephen D. (1993). Hieroglyphs and History at Dos Pilas: Dynastic Politics of the Classic Maya. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-73855-2.
- Kettunen, Harri; and Christophe Helmke (2005). Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs (PDF), Wayeb and Leiden University. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.
- Lacadena GarcÃa-Gallo, Alfonso; and Andrés Ciudad Ruiz (1998). "Reflexiones sobre la estructura polÃtica maya clásica", in Andrés Ciudad Ruiz, Yolanda Fernández MarquÃnez, José Miguel GarcÃa Campillo, Maria Josefa Iglesias Ponce de León, Alfonso Lacadena GarcÃa-Gallo, Luis T. Sanz Castro (Eds.): AnatomÃa de una Civilización: Aproximaciones Interdisciplinarias a la Cultura Maya. Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas. ISBN 84-923545-0-X. (Spanish)
- Marcus, Joyce (1976). Emblem and State in the Classic Maya Lowlands: an Epigraphic Approach to Territorial Organization, Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies. Washington D.C: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-88402-066-5.
- Mathews, Peter (1991). "Classic Maya emblem glyphs", in T. Patrick Culvert (Ed.): Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, School of American Research Advanced Seminars. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.19–29. ISBN 0-521-39210-1.
- Saturno, William A.; David Stuart, and Boris Beltrán (3 March 2006). "Early Maya writing at San Bartolo, Guatemala" (PDF Science Express republ.). Science 311 (5765): pp.1281–1283. DOI:10.1126/science.1121745. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 16400112. Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- Schele, Linda; and David Friedel (1990). A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-07456-1.
- Schele, Linda; and Mary Ellen Miller [1986] (1992). Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art, Justin Kerr (photographer), reprint edition, New York: George Braziller. ISBN 0-8076-1278-2.
- Soustelle, Jacques (1984). The Olmecs: The Oldest Civilization in Mexico. New York: Doubleday and Co. ISBN 0-385-17249-4.
- Stuart, David; and Stephen D. Houston (1994). Classic Maya Place Names, Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology Series, 33. Washington D.C: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-88402-209-9.
External links
- Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs by Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke
- A partial transcription, transliteration, and translation of the Temple of Inscriptions text by Michael D. Carrasco
- A Preliminary Classic Maya-English/English-Classic Maya Vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Readings by Eric Boot
- FAMSI resources on Maya Hieroglyphic writing
- Maya Writing in: Guatemala, Cradle of the Maya Civilization
- Mayaweb: Learn how to write your name in Maya Hieroglyphs
logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to other writing systems, such as syllabaries, abugidas, abjads, and alphabets, where each symbol (letter) primarily represents a sound
..... Click the link for more information.syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound.
..... Click the link for more information.Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages)[1] form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize.
..... Click the link for more information.ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of writing systems (scripts). Each script is given both a four-letter code and a numeric one.
..... Click the link for more information.International Phonetic Alphabet
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
The International
Phonetic Alphabet
History
Nonstandard symbols
Extended IPA
Naming conventions
IPA for English The
..... Click the link for more information.Unicode is an industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in any of the world's writing systems. Developed in tandem with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard
..... Click the link for more information.writing system is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.General properties
Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that one must usually understand something of the
..... Click the link for more information.The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents.
..... Click the link for more information.Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems.
..... Click the link for more information.Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Spanish: Mesoamérica) is a region in the mid-latitudes of the Americas, namely the culture area within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the
..... Click the link for more information.Boturini Codex showing the use of semasiological writing combined with phonetic glyph elements.]] After the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization, the Mayan glyphic system continued to be used but much less so.
..... Click the link for more information.The 3rd century BC started the first day of 300 BC and ended the last day of 201 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period.
The first few decades of the century are characterized by a balance of power between the Greek Hellenistic kingdoms
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish Empire refer to territories formerly colonized by Spain. It was also one of the largest global empire in history.
In the 15th and 16th centuries Spain was in the vanguard of European global exploration and colonial expansion and the opening of trade routes across the
..... Click the link for more information.Conquistador (Spanish: [kon.kis.t̪a'ð̞oɾ]) (English: Conqueror) was a Spanish soldier, explorer and adventurer who took part in the gradual invasion and conquering of much of the Americas and Asia
..... Click the link for more information.As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 through 1600.
See also: 16th century in literatureEvents
1500s
- 1500s: Mississippian culture disappears.
..... Click the link for more information.Tayasal is a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site that dates to the Postclassic period. The site is located in the southern Maya lowlands on a small island in Lake Petén Itzá, now part of the Department of Petén in northern Guatemala.
..... Click the link for more information.logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to other writing systems, such as syllabaries, abugidas, abjads, and alphabets, where each symbol (letter) primarily represents a sound
..... Click the link for more information.syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound.
..... Click the link for more information.Japanese
Unicode range U+4E00–U+9FBF Kanji
U+3040–U+309F Hiragana
U+30A0–U+30FF Katakana
ISO 15924 Jpan
Japanese novel using 漢字仮名交じり文
..... Click the link for more information.Egyptian hieroglyphs
Child systems Hieratic
ISO 15924 Egyp
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
Egyptian hieroglyphs (sometimes called hieroglyphics
..... Click the link for more information.The Ch'olti' language is an extinct Mayan language which was spoken in the Manche region of eastern Guatemala. It is only known from a single manuscript written between 1685 and 1695 which was first studied by Daniel Garrison Brinton.
..... Click the link for more information.A lingua franca (Italian literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology below) is any language widely used beyond the population of its native speakers. The de facto status of lingua franca
..... Click the link for more information.Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages)[1] form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize.
..... Click the link for more information.The Petén Basin is a geographical subregion of Mesoamerica, located in the northern portion of the modern-day nation of Guatemala, and essentially contained within the department of El Petén.
..... Click the link for more information.Yucatán Peninsula, in Southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. The peninsula lies east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a northwestern geographic partition separating the region of Central America from the rest of North America.
..... Click the link for more information.Yucatec Maya ("Yukatek Maya" in the revised orthography of the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala) is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, northern Belize and parts of Guatemala.
..... Click the link for more information.The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala, lying between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north.
The highland are made up of a series of high valleys enclosed by mountains.
..... Click the link for more information.scribe (or scrivener) is an ancient professional whose job involved learned reading and writing, especially within the Renaissance Age. This work usually involved secretarial and administrative duties such as taking of dictation and the keeping of business, judicial and
..... Click the link for more information.glyph is the shape given in a particular typeface to a specific grapheme or symbol.
The term for the abstract entity represented by a glyph is character: a typographical character may be a grapheme (an element of a writing system), but also a numeral, a punctuation
..... Click the link for more information.codex (Latin for block of wood, book; plural codices) is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover.
..... Click the link for more information.
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