494 ANNTJAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



in glyphic script, the form of writing used in the codices. It closely 

 resembles the monumental glyphic style of the stone inscriptions, but 

 is less ornate and has more rounded outlines. In both these styles 

 the signs in a cluster are gathered into a tight bunch or cartouche, in 

 which they are grouped in two dimensions and there is only a vestige 

 of linear order in that the front or extreme left-hand part of a cluster 

 never stands for the last part of a word and similarly for the rear 

 or right-hand part, which never stands for the beginning of a word. 

 The signs in a cluster are usually in contact and often fused together 

 or enveloped in the same flowing outline; they may be attached to 

 the top or bottom of a central sign or they may be one within an- 

 other, i. e., one sign may serve as the frame or ground of another. 

 In short, the putting together of signs is more like that of a heraldic 

 device than like our kind of writing,^" But the reading of the signs 

 is exactly as if they were written in linear order, although this order 

 must be learned separately for each glyph and hence requires a 

 separate and often prolonged study of each by the decipherer. 



The second line from the top in figure 4 shows the signs which 

 compose each cluster regrouped in one-dimensional linear order. 

 Such an arrangement I call open transcription or linear script, and 

 there is some evidence that the Maya actually used such a form of 

 script, though not in the inscriptions or in the codices that happen to 

 have been preserved. Landa cites instances of the utterances "wi^ in 

 Mati^'' and "eZeZe" written by a native informant in this manner,^^ 

 the signs delineated consecutivel}' from left to right and either close 

 together or actually touching. It seems not unlikely that such a 

 linear script may have been used by the later Maya for convenience 

 in ordinary purposes, as the Egyptians used demotic, while the 

 glyphic script would have been regarded as more hieratic and orna- 

 mental and used for important books, priestly writings, and inscrip- 

 tions. Be that as it may, conversion of a passage of glyphic into 

 open transcription is a device which is often helpful to the decipherer. 

 It will be noted that all the signs in this passage are given in figure 

 1, so that from this line of open transcription the whole utterance 



"It should be pointed out that even in our Itind of writing, 1. e., the alphabetic kind, 

 linear order of signs is not quite absolute in many systems, which contain vestiges of an 

 older two-dimensional way of grouping. Thus in the writing of pointed Arabic, pointed 

 Hebrew, and Pitman shorthand, the vowel points are grouped two-dimensionally with the 

 consonantal signs, not written consecutively with them in the order of actual utterance. 

 In the Devanagari alphabet the vowel signs are fused two-dimensionally with the con- 

 sonant signs, and the vowel i to be uttered after a consonant is actually attached in front 

 of that consonant. Our own ich, is similarly written backward, being actually hw — a 

 special cluster of signs that retains an unusual order of positions. Some monograms and 

 modern advertising placards also use two-dimensional groupings of Iett«rs. 



11 Diego de Landa, RelaciCn de las Cosas de Yucatan. The first phrase means "I do not 

 want." The second utterance is gibberish from the Maya standpoint, but judging from the 

 context it evidently represents the informant's attempt to comply with a request to 

 "write L-E, 'le." 



