mayan logograms

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How many Mayan logograms are there?

The Mayan script is logosyllabic combining about 550 logograms (which represent whole words) and 150 syllabograms (which represent syllables). There were also about 100 glyphs representing place names and the names of gods. About 300 glyphs were commonly used.

How do I write my name in Mayan glyphs?

1:1614:27Writing Your Name in Mayan Glyphs - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo you're going to have to use t. Plus the vowel. So instead of looking for a d i would be lookingMoreSo you're going to have to use t. Plus the vowel. So instead of looking for a d i would be looking for a t. So if you have any of these letters in your. Name.

What do Mayan glyphs mean?

Maya glyphs represented words or syllables that could be combined to form any word or concept in the Mayan language, including numbers, time periods, royal names, titles, dynastic events, and the names of gods, scribes, sculptors, objects, buildings, places, and food.

Is Mayan A Logographic?

Most scholars accepted the theory that the Mayan writing system was entirely logographic—that is, that each glyph, or sign, represented an entire word. In addition, it was widely believed that the Mayan inscriptions were largely religious in character.

What is r in Mayan?

Note that the sounds represented by the letters letters D, F, G, Q, R, and V are not found in the Mayan language.

How do you read a Mayan glyph?

Reading Order As a general rule, signs in a given glyph block are read from left to right and from top to bottom. Similarly, Maya texts are written and read from left to right and from top to bottom, usually in columns of two glyph blocks.

Who cracked the Mayan code?

No less fundamental of those was Yuri Knorozov, who became the first linguist to decipher the enigmatic Maya script — the writing system used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica — in the early 1950s.

Why did the Spanish destroy Mayan books?

Having determined that the precious and zealously guarded Mayan books he had been shown with great pride—precisely because of his evident empathy—contained “nothing in which there was not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil,” he ordered all of the books to be burned “…which [the Maya] regretted to an amazing ...

What religion did the Mayans believe in?

They practiced a belief system called animism. Animism is the belief that objects, places and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence, or soul. For the Maya, all things - animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and perhaps even words - were alive.

Can we read Mayan writing?

Over 90 percent of the Maya texts can now be read with reasonable accuracy. As of 2020, at least one phonetic glyph was known for each of the syllables marked green in this chart. /tʼ/ is rare. /pʼ/ is not found, and is thought to have been a later innovation in the Ch'olan and Yucatecan languages.

What language do Mayans speak?

Yucatec language, also called Maya or Yucatec Maya, American Indian language of the Mayan family, spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, including not only part of Mexico but also Belize and northern Guatemala.

What are Maya books called?

codicesMayan books are known as codices. These were made from the soft inner bark of trees, in particular the fig tree. Codices were written or painted with fine brushes onto long strips of bark paper that were folded like screens. They often used drawings (or pictograms) to represent objects and ideas.

Notable features

The Mayan script is logosyllabic combining about 550 logograms (which represent whole words) and 150 syllabograms (which represent syllables). There were also about 100 glyphs representing place names and the names of gods. About 300 glyphs were commonly used.

Links

Information about the Mayan script http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_writing.htm

Mayan languages

Achi , Akatek , Awakatek , Chontal Maya, Ch’ol, Chorti , Chuj, Huasteco, Itzaʼ, Ixil, Jakaltek , Kaqchikel, Ki'che', Lacandon, Mam, Mocho’ , Mopan , Poqomam , Poqomchiʼ , Q’anjob’al, Q'eqchi', Sakapultek, Sipakapense, Tektitek , Tojolabal , Tsotsil, Tzeltal, Tz'utujil , Uspantek , Yucatec Maya

Semanto-phonetic writing systems

Akkadian Cuneiform , Ancient Egyptian (Demotic) , Ancient Egyptian (Hieratic) , Ancient Egyptian (Hieroglyphs) , Chinese , Chữ-nôm , Cuneiform, Japanese , Jurchen , Khitan , Linear B , Luwian , Mayan , Naxi , Sawndip (Old Zhuang) , Sui , Sumerian Cuneiform , Tangut (Hsihsia)

A Lost Language

By the time the Spanish conquered the Maya in the sixteenth century, Maya civilization had been in decline for some time. The conquest-era Maya were literate and had kept thousands of books, but zealous priests burned the books, destroyed temples, and stone carvings where they found them and did all they could to repress Maya culture and language.

Maya Glyphs

Mayan glyphs are a combination of logograms (symbols that represent a word) and syllabograms (symbols that represent a phonetic sound or syllable). Any given word can be expressed by a lone logogram or a combination of syllabograms. Sentences were composed of both of these types of glyphs. A Mayan text was read from top to bottom, left to right.

History of Deciphering of the Maya Glyphs

The glyphs were once thought of as an alphabet, with different glyphs corresponding to letters: this is because Bishop Diego de Landa, a sixteenth century priest with extensive experience with Maya texts (he burned thousands of them) said so and it took centuries for researchers to learn that Landa’s observations were close but not exactly right.

The Maya Codices

Pedro de Alvarado was sent by Hernán Cortés in 1523 to conquer the Maya region: at the time, there were thousands of Maya books or "codices" which were still used and read by the descendants of the mighty civilization.

Glyphs on Temples and Stelae

The Maya were accomplished stonemasons and frequently carved glyphs onto their temples and buildings. They also erected “stelae,” large, stylized statues of their kings and rulers. Along the temples and on the stelae are found many glyphs which explain the significance of the kings, rulers or deeds depicted.

Understanding Maya Glyphs and Language

For centuries, the meaning of the Maya writings, be they in stone on temples, painted onto pottery or drawn into one of the Maya codices, was lost to humanity. Diligent researchers, however, have deciphered nearly all of these writings and understand pretty much every book or stone carving that is associated with the Maya.

Languages

Evidence suggests that codices and other classic texts were written by scribes —usually members of the Maya priesthood —in Classic Maya, a literary form of the extinct Chʼoltiʼ language.

Structure

Two different ways of writing the word bʼalam "jaguar" in the Maya script. First as logogram representing the entire word with the single glyph bʼalam, then phonetically using the three syllable signs bʼa, la, and ma.

Emblem glyphs

An "emblem glyph" is a kind of royal title. It consists of a place name followed by the word ajaw, a Classic Maya term for "lord" with an unclear but well-attested etymology. Sometimes the title is introduced by an adjective kʼuhul ("holy, divine" or "sacred"), resulting in the construction "holy [placename] lord".

Numerical system

The Mayas used a positional base-twenty ( vigesimal) numerical system which only included whole numbers. For simple counting operations, a bar and dot notation was used. The dot represents 1 and the bar represents 5. A shell was used to represent zero.

History

These four examples show how the value of Maya numerals can be calculated.

Decipherment

Deciphering Maya writing proved a long and laborious process. 19th-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.

Syllables

Syllables are in the form of consonant + vowel. The top line contains individual vowels. In the left column are the consonants with their pronunciation instructions. The apostrophe ' represents the glottal stop. There are different variations of the same character in the table cell. Blank cells are bytes whose characters are not yet known.

Maya Writing: Introduction

This resource can be use for the History Key Stage 2 (KS2) curriculum.

How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs

The design and writing of Maya hieroglyphs (i.e. calligraphy) was quite flexible and, unfortunately for us, there are various ways of writing the same word without changing the reading and/or meaning. Maya scribes seem to have enjoyed this artistic freedom a lot!

Maya Hieroglyphic Texts: Grammar

Ancient Maya hieroglyphic texts usually begin with a date and the most common sentence structure will be Date-Verb-Subject.

Make Your Own Stela

A stela, or stelae (plural) were carved standing stones depicting rulers and also contained written inscriptions that recorded events in their lives, such as marriage and conquests. Why don’t you make your own showing your achievements?

How To Write Your Name in Maya Hieroglyphs

Have a look at the demonstration by expert decipherer and calligrapher Dr Mark Van Stone who explains how Maya hieroglyphs are constructed by writing a modern name in glyphs.

Create Your Own Hieroglyphs

Here are some examples of Maya hieroglyphs, why don’t you try to create you own?

Resources to Download

These resources were written by teachers on a CPD trip with me to the Maya area.

Logographic systems

Logographic systems include the earliest writing systems; the first historical civilizations of the Near East, Africa, China, and Central America used some form of logographic writing.

Semantic and phonetic dimensions

All historical logographic systems include a phonetic dimension, as it is impractical to have a separate basic character for every word or morpheme in a language. In some cases, such as cuneiform as it was used for Akkadian, the vast majority of glyphs are used for their sound values rather than logographically.

Chinese characters

Chinese scholars have traditionally classified the Chinese characters ( hànzì) into six types by etymology.

Advantages and disadvantages

The main difference between logograms and other writing systems is that the graphemes are not linked directly to their pronunciation. An advantage of this separation is that understanding of the pronunciation or language of the writer is unnecessary, e.g. 1 is understood regardless of whether it be called one, ichi or wāḥid by its reader.

Maya Glyphic Writing: Introduction

The Maya script is a logosyllabic system in which some signs called logograms represent words or concepts (like “shield” or “jaguar”), whilst other signs called syllabograms (or phonograms) represent sounds in the form of single syllables (like “pa”, “ma”).

How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs

From a visual perspective, the design and writing of Maya hieroglyphs (i.e. calligraphy) was quite flexible and, unfortunately, for students, there are various of ways of writing the same word without changing the reading and/or meaning. Maya scribes seem to have enjoyed and nurtured this artistic freedom.

Maya Hieroglyphic Texts: Grammar

Maya grammar would require a lengthier post, 4 but for the purpose of an introduction to the ancient Maya hieroglyphic script, the following points should do the trick.

Maya Hieroglyphic Syllabary

The following charts are drawn from Harri Kettunen & Christophe Helmke (2014), Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, Wayeb: XIX European Maya Conference, pp. 74-77.

The Origins of the Maya Script

The Maya script was not the first writing system in Mesoamerica and until recently it was thought to have evolved from the so-called Isthmian script (a.k.a.

Deciphering the Maya Script: How were Maya Glyphs Translated?

The decipherment of the Maya script took several centuries and the story of that long scientific endeavour has been recounted in several books 7 but most famously in Michael Coe ‘s “Breaking the Maya Code” 8 which was turned into a TV documentary by Night Fire Films in 2008.

Maya Writing: Frequently Asked Questions

Like any writing system, Maya hieroglyphs were used for a variety of tasks. The texts that survived, though, mainly come from public monuments and mostly recount the deeds of ancient kings.

Notable Features

Links

Mayan Languages

Semanto-Phonetic Writing Systems