June i6, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



325 



lovely. The forests of the coal period, when the great Sycopods 

 were at their climax, may have exhibited some brighter greens, 

 with tendencies towards yellow or glaucous tints; the shells of 

 the Amonites, in the Liassic seas, may have been colored to some 

 extent ; but the great concentrating wave of organic hfe in its 

 progress towards an unknown climacteric must yield an ever-in- 

 creasing glory of color and form to the surface of this planet. 



The beauty of summer as we know it now, though it has never 

 been paralleled in the past, will be as nothing to the blaze of 

 brilliance which shall mark the summers of the future. 



MINOR PHONE nc EL-EMENT3 OF MA.YA HIEROGLYPHS. 



BY HILBORNE T. OKESSON, M.D., PHILADELPHIA. 



The Maya graphic system, the earliest steps of which began as 

 picture-writing, was the natural outcome of a desire to record 

 knowledge made by a people who may be classed as the most in- 

 telligent and civilized of the American race. The language they 

 used, monosyllabic and rich in homophones, is in fact quite as 

 unique as the development attained in their graphic art in its 

 progression from thought-writing to a certain degree of sound- 

 writing, which has been denominated ikonomatic (D. G. Brin- 

 ton; " Essays of an Americanist "), " writing not by things but 

 the sound of the names of things." Scientific research has shown 

 that there is less reason than formerly to doubt Landa's sugges- 

 tion, and that of more recent authorities, in regard to its pho- 

 neticism, which is without doubt of a higher standard than has 

 hitherto been supposed. 



Dr. Cyrus Thomas has well said in a recent article {Science. 

 Vol. XX., No. 505, pp. 197-201) that "... although we may 

 know the chief phonetic element of each part of a compound 

 character, we cannot interpret the whole. This will undoubt- 

 edly be true unless there are indications of the minor elements." 

 Want of complete lexicons containing words that correspond to 

 the archaic lB,nguage of the hieratic and demotic script is also a 

 difficulty which must be considered in the work of interpreta- 

 tion — yet with the almost insurmountable obstacles that exist, 

 it may be said that progress has been made in the work. A study 

 of archaic symbols and ideographs has been made in order to de- 

 termine, if possible, how certain elements used in the Maya 

 graphic art have been derived — in most cases, we think, from 

 the animate and inanimate forms of nature, or from things in- 

 vented by man for his necessities. In these researches we must 

 not overlook the superstitious offices of early people in symboliz- 

 ing ideas — basketry, pottery, and rock-scratchings affording 

 many valuable hints of the changes from the nature-derived ele- 

 ments to the more conventionalized, used ideographically or as 

 phonetic elements, be they chief or minor elements. The figures 

 employed may have been in many cases mere conventionalities, 

 but there is evidence in the work of the Maya scribes that the 

 motives of this convention are based upon primitive realism — 

 for they were but simple-minded children of nature, keen ob- 

 servers of her endless variety of forms, quick to adopt the mo- 

 tive she suggested where it could be utilized to serve a desired 

 purpose. 



That these assertions are not the outcome of mere theory we 

 shall give, presently, a list from which we think have been de- 

 rived what we deem to be phonetic elements of the Maya glyphs. 

 Nature is the source from which have been derived the phonetic 

 elements used by us in endeavors to interpret the Maya glyphs, 

 and it may be said that the results are encouraging; the ideo- 

 graphic suggestion and the chief phonetic element having been 

 obtained, recourse can be made to the "minor phonetic ele- 

 ments" — one analysis being a check to the other. 



We have progressed far enough to feel sure that the Maya 

 graphic system is based upon picture-writing, a necessary out- 

 come in the progression of all graphic systems, from thought- 

 writing to sound-writing. The majority of the glyphs, as we 

 find them, whether hieratic or demotic, are associated with ideo- 

 graphs, many of these having combined with them phonetic ele- 

 ments which appear as glyphs or component parts of other 

 glyphs — be they single glyphs or component parts of compound 



glyphs. Ad excellent example of an ideo-phonetic design is that 

 of Hun CImil, the god of the Maya hades (see plate C, Codex 

 Peresianus, or Codex Cortesianus, p. 16). It will be remarked by 

 consulting this first-named Codex, de Rosny's edition, that the 

 abdomen of this figure is composed of the day-signs of Landa, the 

 elements composing which, according to the analyses that we 

 have made, are phonetic. In fact, we have found that sixteen 

 out of twenty of the Maya day-signs, and many of their variants, 

 are phonetic. We firmly believe that they will all prove to be 

 phonetic when future study shall have demonstrated more exact 

 methods of analysis. Between the legs are phonetic elements 

 and the ideo-phonetic head (of a cayman?) to the right of the 

 knee of the figure is connected with the glyph of Cimi. Around 

 the ankles are designs that appear in the Codices, at times, as 

 glyphs. The majority of the components of the head, arms, 

 ornaments of the wrists, and the implements held in the left 

 hand also appear as phonetic elements in Maya script. It is for 

 this reason that the term "ideo-phonetic" has been used for the 

 drawings, as they are composites conveying ideographic sugges- 

 tions — the ideograph itself being intermingled at times or com- 

 posed of phonetic elements that appear, as we have said, as the 

 component parts of other glyphs. (See figure of Hun Cimil, pp. 

 53, 15, Cortesianus; p. 14, Tro., also, ibid, 3, 29, 14, 34.) Hun- 

 dreds of other examples might be quoted, but as they abound 

 throughout the Maya graphic system this will not be necessary. 

 The following list will indicate the animate and inanimate 

 forma of nature and inventions of man which, it is thought, sug- 

 gested certain phonetic elements of the Maya graphic system, 

 viz. : — 



At a future time examples will be given of analyses of the 

 Maya glyphs, the ideographic suggestion of the glyph, if any, 

 and the drawings which accompany them, together with minor 

 phonetic elements being considered. To give examples in this ar- 

 ticle, already longer than intended, will be impossible. The results 

 obtained from the list to which we have assigned certain phonetic 

 values, and used in interpretation, are encouraging — proving to 

 our own satisfaction that minor phonetic elements undoubtedly 

 exist in the Maya graphic system. These minor elements have 

 in many cases been considered as meaningless decorations, com- 

 ponent parts of ideographs. Many of the minor elements are so 

 combined together that they are difficult to trace. Errors and 

 omissions of the Maya scribes at times increase these difficulties 

 and require especial study and aptitude for such analyses. 



The colors, red, yellow, and black, seem to be used in the 

 Peresianus, with phonetic and ideographic value (see plates xxiii. 

 and xxiv.), and are combined at times with the minor elements 

 of the glyphs. It is probable that colors are also used with a cer- 

 tain ideographic and phonetic value in the other Codices. Inter- 

 esting combinations are to be remarked in the connection of the 

 consonants with the vowel sounds, Landa suggests ma, me, mo, 

 for the phonetic value of a certain glyph, and this method of as- 

 signing several phonetic values to a glyph is quite common ; de- 

 terminatives in many cases being used to indicate the value in- 

 tended. Where these determinatives are wanting it is necessary 

 to try the principal phonetic element through the vowel sounds. 

 The principal phonetic value is, however, generally given by the 

 minor elements of the glyph. 



If the system and list of phonetic values adopted by the writer 

 in the interpretation of the Maya glyphs, be correct, it suggests a 

 higher standard of phoneticism than can well be accorded to a 

 people, who, though the most highly civilized of the American 

 races, were, we are to suppose, but an Indian people. Judging 



