The upper figure he reads kinil, the lower cim-il. The two signs are the title to a picture in the Codex Troano representing a storm with destruction of human life. The two words kin-il cim-il maybe translated “At the time of the killing.” The syllable cim is expressed in several variants in the Codices, examples of two of which, from the Dresden Codex, are presented in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.—Maya Phonetic Terminals.
The signs for the four cardinal points appear to be expressed phonetically. They are represented in Figs. 4 and 5. The words are for North, xaman, East, lakin, South, nohil, West, chikin. Of these the syllable kin appears in lakin and chikin, and is represented as above described. The word for North has not been analyzed; that for South has been translated by Prof. Londe Rosny as ma ya, the word ma meaning hands or arms, the lower as either a fruit or the masculine sign, in either case the phonetic value being alone intended. Both the name and the etymology are, however, doubtful, resting upon late and imperfect authorities.
By pursuing the plan here indicated, that is, by assuming that a figure whose representative value is known, has also a merely phonetic value in other combinations, a certain number of phonetic elements of the Maya tongue have been identified. Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in an article published in one of our prominent journals, states that he has “interpreted satisfactorily to himself twelve or fifteen compound characters which appear to be phonetic.”[[206]]
Figs. 4 and 5.—Signs of the Cardinal Points in Maya.
It is obvious, however, that small progress has been made in this direction compared to the labor expended. By far the greater number of the fixed symbols of the Maya are yet undeciphered. It is acknowledged by all recent students that they cannot be representative, as they recur too frequently. To explain them, there is but one sure course, and that is, by a close analysis of the Maya language to get at the relations of ideas in the native mind as expressed in their own phonetic system.
When we turn to the Mexican system of writing, much more definite and extensive information as to its phonetic elements awaits us. It is possible that at bottom it has really no higher phonetic character, but several facts have combined to give us a better understanding of its structure. In the first place, more examples of it have been preserved, some of these with more or less accurate translations. Again, the earlier writers, those whom we look upon as our historical authorities, have been more explicit and ample in their description of Mexican native literature than of that of Yucatan. Finally, and most important, the Mexican language, the Nahuatl, was studied at an early date, and with surprising thoroughness, by the Catholic priests. Within a generation after the conquest they had completed a quite accurate analysis of its grammatical structure, and had printed a Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary containing more words than are to be found in any English dictionary for a century later.
These intelligent missionaries acquainted themselves with the principles of the Mexican script, and to a limited extent made use of it in their religious instructions, as did also the Spanish scriveners in their legal documents in transactions with the natives. They found the native phonetic writing partly syllabic and partly alphabetic; and it was easy for the priests to devise a wholly alphabetic script on the same plan. An interesting example of this is preserved in the work of Valades, entitled Rhetorica Christiana, written about 1570. Familiar objects are represented, chiefly of European introduction. Each has the phonetic value only of the first letter of its Nahuatl name. The plan is extremely simple, and indeed the forms and names of the Hebrew letters seem to indicate that they arose in the same way. Applying it to English, we should spell the word cat by a picture of a chair, of an axe, and of a table, each of these being the recognized symbol of its first phonetic element or initial letter. Often any one of several objects whose names begin with the same letter could be used, at choice. This is also illustrated in Valades’ alphabet, where, for instance, the letter E is represented by four different objects.