MAYA HIEROGLYPHS — WHORF 501 



decipher a literature, one deciphers only a cipher. A cipher is a 

 method of writing with deliberate intent to conceal the content from 

 those who do not possess the key. It is deciphered with a key 

 because it has first been enciphered with a key. A straightforward 

 writing, not intended to conceal its tenor from all but a select few, is 

 not really deciphered; it is analyzed and translated. The methods 

 of such analysis and translation are quite different from the methods 

 of message decoders ; they are the methods of Champollion and Young 

 with Egyptian, of Rawlinson and Grotefend with Babylonian, of 

 Hrozny and Sturtevant with Hittite; they are the methods of 

 linguistics and philology. 



The other wrong way of attacking the linguistic portion of the 

 Maya codices is the Sitzenfleisch approach. It concentrates for long 

 periods upon isolated glyphs or words, having conveniently forgotten 

 that such things as sentences exist. Suppose that in this method 

 one succeeds in deciphering or partly deciphering thij glyph of 

 Itzamna. Then one next spends years scrutinizing every glyph of 

 Itzamna in the literature, noting the most minute differences, to 

 the pen quirk, and linking it up first with every scrap of information 

 that can be gleaned about Itzamna, then with every god in the Mid- 

 dle American area that can be connected with Itzamna. The mere 

 glyph disappears from view, having served as the springboard into a 

 sea of mythology, religion, and folklore, from which one may per- 

 haps emerge at last with a monograph entitled "The Concept of 

 Itzamna." This method, through concentrating entirely on word 

 study, wanders so far from the specific incidences of the word in the 

 texts that it finally ceases to be linguistic altogether, and becomes 

 something else. Words are nothing without sentences. Wliat a 

 word is depends on what it does, i. e., on its position and function in 

 the sentence. This is even more important than how it is written. 

 In Maya as in English there are many homonyms, and also words 

 which though not homonyms are written alike, as in English are 

 lead (the metal) and lead (go in front). Hence the determination 

 of the sounds of signs and of their glyphic combinations is only 

 half the battle. 



There is only one road to decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphs 

 and reading of the Maya literature. It is through a growing con- 

 catenation of sentences, proceeding from the less to the more diffi- 

 cult, beginning with sentences whose meaning can be understood from 

 pictures, with the linguistic interest and linguistic findings kept con- 

 stantly foremost, and conclusions relative to subject matter resolutely 

 submerged. The linguistic findings must eventually bear the scru- 

 tiny of, and become the ground of, collaboration for various lin- 

 guistic scholars. One man cannot be the medium for interpreting a 



