Abstract
MAYA HIEROGLYPHS.—Though much attention has been bestowed on the decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphs since a key was supplied by Diego de Landa, the first Spanish bishop, the result, except as regards some numerals, has been disappointing. It is obvious that the way to begin such a study is by an examination of the modern language of the country, as the study of Coptic has helped in ancient Egyptian. Hitherto the grammars of the Maya tongue have supplied an inadequate basis for its study, because their authors, Spanish priests, were ignorant of philology and phonetics and tried to build up a grammar of a primitive language by following the Latin or Spanish models. This naturally led to two classes of defects: unnatural forms were invented to express corresponding ideas in Latin or Spanish, and numbers of native expressions were overlooked because they could not be brought within the European system. Mr. A. M. Tozzer, the first travelling fellow in American ethnology of the Archæological Institute of America, spent a considerable time in Central America, from 1901 to 1905, and he issued in 1907 a report of his ethnological work. This he has now followed up by a comprehensive grammar of the Maya language on modern lines and a bibliography of the literature. He omits any discussion of the phonetic character of the Maya hieroglyphs, and he deals with the language as unrecorded up to the time of the Spanish conquest. But he justly remarks that any elucidation of the hieroglyphs will be impossible until an advance is made in our acquaintance with their phonetic elements. This in recent years has not advanced in comparison with the gains made in deciphering the numerical parts of the hieroglyphic writing. A successful correlation of the modern Maya language with the hieroglyphs holds out a prospect of success. In this respect Mr Tozzer's book, forming vol. 9 of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archæology and Ethnology, Harvard University, deserves hearty commendation.
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Research Items. Nature 109, 282–283 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/109282a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/109282a0