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 THE 
 
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 Slncient |)t)onetic ^Ipljabet 
 
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 Y U C A 1 A N . 
 
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 ByD. G. BRINTON^M.D. 
 
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 ' SARIN & SONS, No. 84 NASSAU STREET. 
 
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 1870. 
 
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 MV^EVMoftheAMER-ICAN INDIAN: 
 
 MARSHALL H. SAVILLE COLLE 
 
 Huntington Free Library 
 
 Native American 
 Collection 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
.CORNELL UNIVEHSfTY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 104 087 618 
 

 fri£ 
 
 Ancient |)l)0nettc ^lpl)abet 
 
 YUCATAN. 
 
 By D. G. BRINTON, m.d. 
 
 J. SABIN & SONS, No. 84 NASSAU STREET. 
 
 1 870. 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924104087618 
 
Ancient Phonetic Alphabet 
 
 YUCATAN 
 
 OST readers are quite familiar with the fact that a well-developed 
 method of picture writing, or "didactic painting," as it has been 
 appropriately named, prevailed through Mexico and Central America 
 for centuries before the conquest. But that, in the latter country, 
 there was a true phonetic alphabet, is one of the more recent discov- 
 eries of American archaeology, and certainly one of the most interest- 
 ing, as it promises to restore to us the records of the most cultivated 
 nation of ancient America for a number of centuries previous to the 
 advent of the white man. 
 It is well-known that the forests of Yucatan conceal the ruins of cities and palaces built 
 of stones covered with inscribed characters. All travelers who had seen these characters 
 were convinced that they were intended to perpetuate ideas, but the key seemed to be 
 irrevocably lost. Fortunately, within the last few years (to be exact, in December, 1863), 
 a diligent antiquarian, the Abb6 Brasseur de Bourbourg, unearthed in a library in Madrid 
 — that of the Royal Academy of History — a copy of an unpublished description of Yucatan 
 composed by Diego de Landa, the first bishop of the country. In this was contained the 
 phonetic alphabet employed by the aboriginal Mayas, with a tolerably fiiU, but an intolera- 
 bly obscure, explanation of their mode of using it. As De Landa's words are so important, 
 and also not a little difficult to comprehend, we cannot do better than transcribe them ex- 
 actly as they appear in the copy of his work published at Paris, in 1864. 
 
 He premises his remarks by saying that the natives used certain characters or letters 
 with which they wrote in books their ancient histories and sciences, and by means of these 
 letters, and figures, and certain signs in the figures, they could understand and teach from 
 these manuscripts. The missionaries found very many of them, all of which, the good 
 bishop informs us, proved on examination to contain mjjre lies and superstitions, and were 
 consequently burned, which pained the natives in the most marvelous manner (lo qual a 
 maravilla sentian, y les dava pena). 
 He then continues : — 
 
 " De sus letras porne aqui un a, b, c, que no permite su pesadumbre mas, porque usan para todas las 
 aspiraciones de las letras de un caracter, y despues, al puntar de las partes otro, y assi viene a Jbazer in infini- 
 tum, como se podra ver en el siguiente exemplo. I^ quiere dezir laf o y cafar con el ; para escrivirle con 
 
4 ANCIENT PHONETIC ALPHABET 
 
 sus caracteres, haviendolos nosotros hecho entender que son dos letras, lo escrivian ellos con tres, poniendo 
 a la aspiracion de la / la vocal i6f que antes de si trae, y en esto no hierran, aunque usense, si quisleron ellos 
 de su curiosidad. Exemplo: — 
 
 Despues al cabo le pegan la parte junta. Ha que quiere dezir agua^ porque la hachi tiene a, h^ antes de 
 si la ponen ellos al principio con a^ y al cabo desta manera : — 
 
 Tambien lo escriben a partes, pero de la una y otra manera, yo no pusiera aqui ni tretara dello sino por dar 
 cuenta entera de las cosas desta gente. Ma in kati quiere decir no quierOj ellos lo escriben a partes desta 
 manera : — 
 
 a-Jlo( 
 
 This is all on the subject the bishop vouchsafes us. Let us now attempt^ a free translation 
 of his words, premising that they are so obscure in parts, and the composition so careless 
 and provincial, that we shall not take it at all amiss if an/" reader thinks he can improve 
 our rendering : 
 
 " Of their letters, I shall place here an A, B, C, their clumsiness not allowing more ; 
 for they employ one character for all the aspirations of the letters, and another to denote 
 their repetitions, and so they go on in infinitum, as one may see in the following example : 
 Le means a lasso and to hunt with one. In order to write with their characters, although 
 we told them it contains but two letters, they make use of three, giving to the aspiration 
 of the / the vowel e, which is before it, and in this they are not in error, if they wish to 
 write it in their curious manner. Example : 
 
 e 1 e 16 
 
 Afterwards they put at the end the part which is joined. Again in ka, which means water, 
 because the letter h contains the sounds a, h, they place the a both at the beginning and 
 at the end, in this manner : — 
 
 aha 
 
 They can write it either with separate letters or united together. I wo^ld not have in- 
 oerted nor have mentioned this but that I wished to give a complete description of this 
 people. Ma in kah means / do not wish ; they write it in separate letters in this way : — 
 
 ma i n ka ti •," 
 
 From these valuable though too scanty hints we learn that the letters were employed 
 connected together in a manner somewhat analogous to, though more intimately than our 
 cursive shrift, and also separately, as in the Roman alphabet. When the latter was the 
 case, they were repeated apparently in their connected form. Further, the vowel sound 
 which is necessarily associated with the enunciation of every consonant (la aspiracion), 
 and which in the Maya language of Yucatan is so pronounced as to have been called by the 
 Abb6 de Bourbourg, " une certaine affectation gutturale," was taken account of, and ex- 
 pressed in writing. Th?p there were a number of arbitrary signs, figures, and symbols, 
 
OF YUCATAN. 
 
 with syllabic values, as we see in the last example given. These peculiarities, of course, 
 make the system clumsy, but are by no means insurmountable difficulties in the way of elu- 
 cidating it. 
 
 Immediately at the close of the foregoing extract Bishop Landa gives the alphabet sub- 
 joined, which has been carefully copied on wood, by Mr. Edward Bensell, of Philadelphia, 
 the arrangement of the letters being slightly altered : — 
 
 13 
 
 H 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 ■r ^^. 
 
 18 fii«-in I / 
 
 '9 {/J I 
 20 ^ « 
 
 26 
 
 29 
 
 Besides these elementary sounds, he gives twenty arbitrary signs, one for each day of 
 the Maya month, which signs seem also to be used at their syllabic value in writing words. 
 All of them have the same peculiar rounded or circular form which is observable in most 
 of the letters, and which has induced some writers to call this the "Calculiform " alphabet. 
 
 But returning to the A, B, C, let us inquire the meanings of the figures adopted. 
 Knowing these, we shall be in better position to recognise their variations on existing in- 
 scriptions and manuscripts — for these, as we expect, are considerable ; but not more so 
 perhaps, than the variations in the forms of the Roman letters. 
 
 a. Nos. 1, 2, and 4, are representations of the heads of some animals. No. 2 being 
 evidently the head of a bird with a long, curved beak, probably a species of parrot. No. 
 3 has been supposed to represent a leg or a boot of some kind, but is probably also a rude 
 figure of a head. (See Plate XXXVI, of the manuscrii Troano.) 
 
6 ANCIENT PHONETIC ALPHABET 
 
 b. Both these letters are supposed to represent a path or way bearing the marks of foot 
 prints, indicated by the small figures inside the circle. 
 
 c. This letter should probably be pronounced ia {a as in mate), and is imagined to 
 represent a mouth displaying sharp teeth. 
 
 ca. This sign is explained as the jaw of an animal thickly set with teeth ; but a careful 
 examination of its variations leads to the belief that it is a representation of the eye lashes. 
 (See the Etudes sur It Manuscrit Troano, p. 55.) 
 
 cu. This has not been identified. 
 
 t. As there is no d in Maya this character stands for both t and d. It signifies space, 
 the four marks leading towards the center representing the four cardinal points, and the 
 phonetic base being the Maya, preposition ti, in, toward, at, in space. 
 
 e. Probably a front view of the human face, surmounted by the hair, the dots marking 
 the eyes, nose and mouth. 
 
 h. Nos. 12 and 13, vairiations of the same, represent a joint of bamboo. No. 14 is the 
 guttural h, pronounced ha, which woril in Maya means water. The figure represents a 
 stream flowing around some objects. 
 
 i. This letter stems formed after the analogy of c, but no satisfactory analysis has yet 
 been offered. 
 
 k, ku. The k is beyond doubt derived from a head seen in profile. The upper figure 
 within the circle is the closed eye with its lashes (compare I>^. 8) ; that below on the 
 right is the ear (compare No. 28) ; that on the left the mouth. (See the variations in the 
 Etudes sur le Manuscrit Troano, p. 55.) The ku is supposed to be a drawing of the 
 sacred "medicine bag." 
 
 /. Neither of these has been resolved. 
 
 m. This also, is the figure of a head. It is distinguished from the k by the eye being 
 open, from the p by the absence of dots around the mouth. 
 
 n. Possibly the figure of a serpent. 
 
 o. Variations of the same, of uncertain origin. 
 
 p, pp. Again the face in profile. 
 
 X. The first figure is easily recognised as the human hand, the second as a face in pro- 
 file, emitting breath from the mouth. 
 
 u. The first sign represents the ear, the second is of uncertain derivation. 
 
 z. This seems to be a vase of some kind. 
 
 It is evident that many of these signs have received abbreviated and conventional forms 
 quite remote from their original figures, precisely as we know occurred in the Phenician 
 and derived alphabets. The variations are numerous and puzzling. 
 
 It will be observed that the basis of most of them is a head seen in front or in profile. 
 Bearing this in mind, and fixing definitely the differential marks, which alone were deemed 
 of importance by the native artists, we could venture with considerable confidence on the 
 interpretation of manuscripts and inscriptions, did we not meet with very serious obstacles 
 in other directions. 
 
 One of these is the resolution of the groups referred to by Landa as las partes juntas. 
 In these the rounded "Calculiform " letters are arranged in quadrilateral masses, each rep- 
 resenting a phrase, name, or title. We may seek the origin of this arrangement in what 
 philologists call the incorporative, or " polysynthetic " character of the IN^aya in common 
 with all other American tongues, which tends to the expression of an idea with all its mod- 
 ifications, in one intricate grammatical synthesis. These groups must first be separated in 
 their component parts, and then arranged, in proper order. Some of them read from right 
 to left, and alternately from top to bottom and bottom to top ; or, to illustrate by a dia- 
 gram, as if we were to write the word marvelous, thus : — 
 
 O L M 
 
 U E A 
 
 S V R 
 
 But the artist had no hesitation in changing this arrangement, if another would allow 
 him to compose a neater group. Especially is this the case on the sculptures, where the 
 love of ornamentations constantly obscures the design and renders the letters almost unre- 
 
6f VUCATAN. 7 
 
 Cognisable, precisely as' the fashion is at the present day to adorn the walls of our churches 
 with inscriptions in ornamental and Gothic characters, hardly legible to unpracticed eyes. 
 
 There is also an obstacle in the very limited number of manuscripts in this character 
 which have been preserved. Of the vast number found among the natives at the conquest, 
 only three or four are known to be in existence. One of these is the " Dresden Manu- 
 script," another the " Manuscript Troano," the third the " Manuscrit Mexican, No. z," 
 of the Bibliothlque Imp^riale ; and perhaps the " Pesth Manuscript " is in the same shrift. 
 Of these the Dresden Manuscript may be seen in the large collection of Lord Kings- 
 borough on Mexican Antiquities, and the Manuscript Troano was published in fac simile 
 by the French government under the editorship of M. Brasseur de Bourbourg. {Mission 
 Scientifique au Mexique et a I' Am'erique Centrale, Linguistique. Paris, 1869. Impri- 
 merie Imperiale.) Tnere is, however, material almost inexhaustible in the inscriptions 
 preserved upon the stone temples, altars, and pillars of Yucatan, which we may with great 
 confidence look to see deciphered before many years. 
 
 The only serious difficulty which is at present in the way is our want of knowledge of 
 the ancient Maya language. All the published grammars and vocabularies are extremely 
 deficient and incomplete, and quite inadequate to serve us in interpreting the inscrip- 
 tions. But even this alarming obstacle is only temporary. There exists in manuscript a 
 most complete and carefully composed dictionary of the Maya, written about 1650, two 
 copies of which are in this country, one in the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, and 
 which we earnestly hope will shortly be published under the efficient superintendence of 
 Dr. Hermann Berendt, the most accomplished Maya scholar living. With it in hand, 
 the deciphering of the inscriptions of Palenque, Uxmal, Itza, and the other ruined cities of 
 Yucatan, and of the manuscripts already mentioned, will become certainly a less serious task 
 than that of translating the cuneiform inscriptions of Ninevah. 
 
 Even without other aids than the limited vocabularies already published, some antiqua- 
 rians have boldly set to work on the Yucatecan writings. Most conspicuous of them is M. 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg, who first published Diego de Landa's work containing the alphabet. 
 (Relation des chases de Yucatan de Diego de Landa. Texte espagnol et traduction 
 jrancaise en regard, comprenant les signes du calendrier, et de I' Alphabet hieroglyphi- 
 que de la langue Maya. Paris, 1864. 
 
 His recent edition of the Manuscript Troano is prefaced by an Etude in which he at- 
 tempts to interpret several of its pages. It is painful to be unable to say a single word in 
 favor of his views. They are thoroughly untenable and groundless. The Abb6 Brasseur 
 deserves the highest praise for his ardor and devotion to archaeological studies, but his the- 
 ories do not bear a moment's examination. They are so utterly wild that we are almost 
 afraid to state them. He imagines that these inscriptions and manuscripts all contain geo- 
 logical reminiscences, chiefly concerning the submersion of a portion of the American con- 
 tinent and the consequent formation of the West India Islands. He explains all the let- 
 ters as "expressive images of the cataclysm of which they are the phonetic expression." 
 The culture of the Mayas and Aztecs he regards as the debris of a far higher civilization, 
 which once extended over most of the American continent, and from which that of 
 ancient Egypt (!) was derived. He insists on the identity of the ancient Maya and Aztec 
 tongues, for which there is not a shadow of proof, and going further, claims that they are 
 both derived fr6m Germanic roots. Of course, with such notions as these, his " interpre- 
 tation " of the Manuscript is an absurdity, and can never obtain a serious hearing in scien- 
 tific circles. 
 
 A very different student is M. H. de Charencey, long favorably known for his re- 
 searches into the Basque language, the dialects of Central America, and other critical publi- 
 cations. In the first volume of the Actes la Societk Philologique (Paris, 1870) he has an 
 "Essai de Dechiffrement d'un Fragment d' Inscription Palenquienne." He takes for his 
 subject the famous " bas-relief of the Cross," found on the back of the great altar at Pal- 
 enque. It is portrayed in Stephens's Travels in Central America, and more carefully in 
 the work of Cabrera on the ruins of Palenque, from a drawing by M. de Waldeck. It 
 seems to represent the ceremony of baptism, or something analogous to it. The central 
 
AWcIIInT phonetic AL^HABif. 
 
 ^gures are surrounded by inscriptions. Immediately above the bird which surmounts tlid 
 cross is found this character : — 
 
 This he analyses as follows, commencing at the right : h (variation of No. 1 3 of the 
 alphabet), o (variation of No. 22 enclosed in a circle), nab (the Maya word for the palm 
 of the hand which supports the middle letter), ku (variation of No. \']),=honabku. This, 
 in the orthography hunabku, a discrepancy of no great moment, is a familiar Maya name 
 of divinity, and means the only, or the one God. The course of argument by which he 
 supports this analysis is careful and judicious. 
 
 The second group which M. de Charencey analyses is this : — 
 
 This he resolves, commencing at the right hand upper figure, proceeding from aoove 
 downward, and from right to left, into the following letters of Landa's alphabet : 
 
 u, ku, ku, I, ca, nab, 
 
 meaning " it, or those, of the Kukulcan." Kukulcan, however was the name of the hero 
 god of the Mayas, corresponding to the Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs. His worship was in- 
 troduced into Yucatan subsequent to the ninth century of the Christian era, and his name 
 means in Maya precisely what Quetzalcoatl does in Aztec, namely, " the serpent with 
 quetzal feathers," the quetzal being a species of parrot with bright green plumage. This 
 interpretation, therefore, if admitted, fixes an important date in Central American history ; 
 for it proves that the erection of the extraordinary monuments of Palenque, which were 
 found in ruins at the conquest, took place subsequent to the ninth century of our era. 
 
 It is not our object at present to go into the details of these remarkable investigations, 
 still less to criticise them at length, but simply to give their outlines and results. They 
 should excite an earnest interest in this country, and stimulate our scholars to turn their 
 attention to the antiquities of our own continent, which thus acquire an importance quite 
 equal to those on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile, which have commanded such 
 profound study from European scholars.