MAYA HIEROGLYPHS — WHORF 499 



The next sign cluster, i-g-mn-a, writing the word igamna "Itzamna, 

 name of the leading Maya god, the Roman-nosed god of the codices," 

 is very important because it is the first proper name written in Maya 

 hieroglyphs to be deciphered. Proper names and especially per- 

 sonal names have a peculiar convincingness in the decipherment of 

 any script. They are ideal tools for decipherment when they can be 

 had. When a decipherer can with the aid of his system spell out 

 some well-known proper name which should occur in his text, he 

 knows that he is on the right track. It will be remembered that it 

 was the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra in an inscription that gave 

 Champollion his most effective clues, and similarly it was the names 

 of Xerxes and Darius in the Behistun inscription that afforded Raw- 

 linson Ms starting point for the decipherment of cuneiform. It has 

 long been agreed that the Roman-nosed god of the codex pictures, 

 or god D, corresponds in characters to the one traditionally known as 

 Itzamna. His glyph is always written in this way. If we knew 

 more of the ancient names of the gods our progress in decipher- 

 ment would be materially aided. Unfortunately the god Kukulcan, 

 who appears so frequently in the codices, evidently is not called by 

 that name in the codices, or else if he is called by that name it is 

 written by a unitary word sign. 



The next cluster, k-ka-haw^ representing the pronunciation kahaw^ 

 is to be reconstructed ka-aJiaw "our lord," "our master," "our king." 

 This was the characteristic epithet of Itzamna as the Maya Zeus. In 

 the Chilam Balam of Chumayel and also that of Tizimin, this god is 

 referred to and called Itzamna kavil. Here ''"kamV equals in the 

 Americanist phonetic system, k'^awil^ from kahawil (glottalization 

 arising from loss of -ah-) from ka-ahawil^ which has the same mean- 

 ing as ka-ahaio. Thus this decipherment may be likened to Rawlin- 

 son's recognition of "king, great king, king of kings" after the name 

 of Xerxes. The Motul defines ahaw as '"''ahau {ahaw) : rey o empera- 

 dor, monarca, principe o gran senor." The preposed pronominal 

 ka (traditional spelling ca) is the second person plural governing 

 the following word, the translation of the relationship being pos- 

 sessive when that word is translated as a noun, subject when it is 

 translated by a verb. Here of course the translation is "our." The 

 cluster k-ka-haw "our lord" is an almost invariable accompaniment 

 of the name Itzamna in the codices ; rarely it is omitted, and rarely 

 it occurs with the names of other gods. Occasionally also with 

 names of gods we find the simple epithet ahaw "lord," written a-hw^ 

 with an a sign not listed in this paper but cited in slightly variant 

 form by Landa, and with No. 6 of figure 1 for hw. In accordance 

 with the general principle of Maya writing that signs may not be 



430577 — i2 33 



