Logograph in China and Hieroglyph in Central America
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A Criteria-Based System for the Qualitative Assessment of Reading Proposals for the Deciphering of Classic Mayan Hieroglyphs
Modelling vagueness – A criteria-based system for the qualitative assessment of reading proposals for the deciphering of Classic Mayan hieroglyphs Franziska Diehr1, Sven Gronemeyer2, 3, Elisabeth Wagner2, Christian Prager2, Katja Diederichs2, Uwe Sikora1, Maximilian Brodhun1, Nikolai Grube2 1 State and University Library Göttingen, Germany 2 Department for Anthropology of the Americas, University of Bonn, Germany 3 Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Australia [email protected] Abstract office, located at the Department for the Anthropo- logy of the Americas, University of Bonn,3 works The project ‘Text Database and Diction- in close collaboration with the State and University ary of Classic Mayan’ aims at creating a Library Göttingen.4 Since 2014, the hieroglyphic machine-readable corpus of all Maya texts texts have been prepared, evaluated, and interpreted and compiling a dictionary on this basis. in interdisciplinary cooperation using methods and The characteristics of this complex writ- tools from the humanities and information techno- ing system pose particular challenges to logy (Prager, 2014c). research, resulting in contradictory and am- One result of this collaboration, and at the same biguous deciphering hypotheses. In this time an important milestone of the project, is the paper, we present a system for the qualitat- digital Sign Catalogue which is the subject of this ive evaluation of reading proposals that is paper. For the creation of a text corpus and a dic- integrated into a digital Sign Catalogue for tionary of an only partially understood language Mayan hieroglyphs, establishing a novel and script, a Sign Catalogue, an inventory of all concept for sign systematisation and clas- used signs, is an indispensable instrument. -
A STUDY of WRITING Oi.Uchicago.Edu Oi.Uchicago.Edu /MAAM^MA
oi.uchicago.edu A STUDY OF WRITING oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu /MAAM^MA. A STUDY OF "*?• ,fii WRITING REVISED EDITION I. J. GELB Phoenix Books THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS oi.uchicago.edu This book is also available in a clothbound edition from THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS TO THE MOKSTADS THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO & LONDON The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada Copyright 1952 in the International Copyright Union. All rights reserved. Published 1952. Second Edition 1963. First Phoenix Impression 1963. Printed in the United States of America oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE HE book contains twelve chapters, but it can be broken up structurally into five parts. First, the place of writing among the various systems of human inter communication is discussed. This is followed by four Tchapters devoted to the descriptive and comparative treatment of the various types of writing in the world. The sixth chapter deals with the evolution of writing from the earliest stages of picture writing to a full alphabet. The next four chapters deal with general problems, such as the future of writing and the relationship of writing to speech, art, and religion. Of the two final chapters, one contains the first attempt to establish a full terminology of writing, the other an extensive bibliography. The aim of this study is to lay a foundation for a new science of writing which might be called grammatology. While the general histories of writing treat individual writings mainly from a descriptive-historical point of view, the new science attempts to establish general principles governing the use and evolution of writing on a comparative-typological basis. -
Disharmony in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing
FIVE Disharmony in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing Linguistic Change and Continuity in Classic Society Stephen Houston Brigham Young University David Stuart Peabody Museum, Harvard University John Robertson Brigham Young University Some forty-five years ago Yuri Knorozov discovered the existence of phonetic syllables in Maya writing (1952, 1958, 1965, 1967a). Despite strong opposition, Knorozov made an excellent case that Maya script recorded signs of consonant + vowel form. When com- bined in groupings of two or more glyphs these signs spelled words like ma + ma→ mam or ku + tzu→ kutz. In each instance the final vowel of the second syllable—a superfluous, “dead” vowel—could be safely detached once the two syllables were joined into a CVC (or CVCVC) root, the most common configuration in Mayan languages. Knorozov’s in- sight has been discussed elsewhere, either as an issue in intellectual history (Houston 1988; Coe 1992) or as a topic in decipherment (Justeson and Campbell, eds., 1984). To- day, few epigraphers question the singular importance of Knorozov’s contribution. Work- ing in near-total isolation from other Mayanists, he succeeded in achieving a break- through that fundamentally changed modern views of Maya writing. Yet Knorozov could not explain one feature of syllabic signs: What, precisely, deter- mined the final sign in such groupings? Knorozov detected a default arrangement, which he labeled “synharmony,” by which the vowel of the second sign duplicated that of the first (Knorozov 1965: 174–75). As Kelley pointed out, this pattern explained a large num- ber of spellings (Kelley 1976: 18). Lounsbury, too, found that synharmony accorded with morphophonemic processes in Mayan languages (1973: 100), especially the “echo” sylla- ble, a “voiceless . -
Kettunen and Helmke: Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs
Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs Workshop Handbook 10th European Maya Conference Leiden, December 5–10, 2005 Harri Kettunen University of Helsinki Christophe Helmke University College London Wayeb & Leiden University Dedicated to the memory of John Montgomery Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs Harri Kettunen & Christophe Helmke Wayeb & Leiden University 2005 Kettunen & Helmke 2005 Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs TABLE OF CONTENTS: Foreword ................................................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgments................................................................................................................................... 4 Note on the Orthography......................................................................................................................... 5 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 6 2. History of Decipherment.................................................................................................................... 7 3. Origins of the Maya Script ............................................................................................................... 11 4. Language(s) of the Hieroglyphs....................................................................................................... 12 5. Writing System................................................................................................................................ -
The Writing Revolution
9781405154062_1_pre.qxd 8/8/08 4:42 PM Page iii The Writing Revolution Cuneiform to the Internet Amalia E. Gnanadesikan A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication 9781405154062_1_pre.qxd 8/8/08 4:42 PM Page iv This edition first published 2009 © 2009 Amalia E. Gnanadesikan Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Amalia E. Gnanadesikan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. -
The Hieroglyphic Sign Functions. Suggestions for a Revised Taxonomy
The Hieroglyphic Sign Functions1 Suggestions for a Revised Taxonomy Stéphane Polis/Serge Rosmorduc Abstract The aim of this paper is to suggest a taxonomy that allows for a systematic description of the functions that can be fulfilled by hieroglyphic signs. Taking as a point of departure the insights of several studies that have been published on the topic since Champollion, we suggest that three key-features – namely, semography, phonemography and autonomy – are needed in order to provide a description of the glottic functions of the ancient Egyptian graphemes. Combining these paradigmatic and syntagmatic features, six core functions can be identified for the hieroglyphic signs: they may behave as pictograms, logograms, phonograms, classifiers, radicograms or interpretants. In a second step, we provide a defi nition for each function and discuss examples that illustrate the fuzziness between these core semiotic categories. The understanding of the functions of the signs2 in the hieroglyphic writing system3 has been an issue ever since knowledge of this script was lost during Late Antiquity. If ancient authors 1 We are grateful to Todd Gillen, Eitan Grossman, Matthias Müller, Wolfgang Schenkel, Sami Uljas and Jean Winand for their critical comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. 2 In this paper, we focus exclusively on the so-called “glottic” functions (see e. g. Harris 2000) of the ancient Egyptian writing system, i. e., on the writing system viewed as a means of communicating linguistic content. It should be stressed that “[t]hat the notions of logograms, classifiers, phonograms, and interpretants [etc. used throughout this paper] refer to possible functions fulfilled by the tokens of particular graphemes according to their distribution and do not define inherent qualities of the signs” (Lincke/Kammerzell 2012: 59); see already Schenkel’s (1984: 714–718) and Kammerzell’s (2009) ‘Zeichenfunktionsklasse.’ 3 Regarding the various possible approaches to this complex writing system, see Schenkel (1971: 85). -
Cuadernos De Trabajo 38
Cuadernos de Trabajo Instituto de Investigaciones Histórico-Sociales UNIVERSIDAD VERACRUZANA 38 La Escritura Mesoamericana y Maya Patrimonio Epigráfico de los Mayas La Casa Knorosov Xcaret Dr. Pedro Jiménez Lara Xalapa, Veracruz Noviembre de 2010 INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES HISTÓRICO-SOCIALES Director: Martín Aguilar Sánchez CUADERNOS DE TRABAJO Editor: Feliciano García Aguirre Comité Editorial: Joaquín R. González Martinez Rosío Córdova Plaza Pedro Jiménez Lara David Skerritt Gardner CUADERNO DE TRABAJO N° 38 © Instituto de Investigaciones Histórico-Sociales Universidad Veracruzana Diego Leño 8, Centro Xalapa, C.P. 91000, Veracruz ISSN 1405-5600 Viñeta de la portada: Luis Rechy (†) Cuidado de la edición: Lilia del Carmen Cárdenas Vázquez La Escritura Mesoamericana y Maya Patrimonio Epigráfico de los Mayas La Casa Knorosov Xcaret Dr. Pedro Jiménez Lara Cuadernos de trabajo Instituto de Investigaciones Histórico-Sociales Universidad Veracruzana Indice Página Introducción 6 Yuri Valentinovich Knorosov Desciframiento de la Escritura Maya 9 Sus primeros estudios 9 Un epigrafista rojo 10 En tierras mayas previo a su último viaje 11 Knorosov un cientifico completo 11 Proyecto para la escritura mesoamericana y maya 16 Socios Fundadores 29 Universidad Estatal de Rusia de Ciencias Humanas de Moscu Facultad de Historia, Politología y Derecho: Centro de Estudios Mesoamericanos “Yuri knórosov” (Moscú) 29 Universidad Veracruzana 31 Instituto de Investigaciones Histórico-Sociales 33 Centro turistico Kcaret 34 Conclusiones 37 Bibliografía 38 Anexo 1. Protocolo de intenciones entre Universidad Estatal de Rusia de Ciencias Humanas (Federación de Rusia) y Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa (México) 39 “Cualquier sistema o código elaborado por un ser humano podría ser resuelto por cualquier otro ser humano” Knorosov, Moscú, 1952 Introducción Una de las creaciones, por excelencia, hecha por el hombre es sin lugar a dudas la escritura como medio comunicación y de dejar evidencia de su existencia. -
Semble-T-Il, La Posture Fondamentale Des Auteurs Devant Geminoïd, C'est
Rezensionen 285 semble-t-il, la posture fondamentale des auteurs devant uscript). The book also features a brief introduction by Geminoïd, c’est-à-dire une posture qui évacue presque Nikolai Grube on the basics of Maya hieroglyphic writ- complètement le sens critique. Les auteurs veulent croire ing, mathematics, calendar, and religion, as well as the dans la possibilité d’établir une communication avec Ge- structure and content of the codex. Another short article minoïd, et cette croyance est au fondement de la surin- by Thomas Bürger outlines the history of the manuscript. terprétation. Ils parlent bien de “résistance au simulacre” Photographs are of high quality and constitute the first (158), mais ils y résistent très peu, ou seulement spora- accurate reproduction of the Codex, which was meticu- diquement. Comme ils le disent, ils se laissent prendre lously restored after it had suffered serious damage during au jeu (40). the firebombing of Dresden in World War II. As the qual- Les conclusions des auteurs au sujet de la communi- ity of photographic reproductions and facsimiles before cation sont somme toute assez triviales. Il est en effet dif- World War II cannot be compared with modern reproduc- ficile de communiquer avec une machine, même quand tions, it is not just a nicely illustrated edition for people on a la croyance. “Deux modes d’existence entrent ici en who want to learn about the Maya, but also an invaluable friction, l’organique et le machinique. Ils s’affrontent sans source for Mayanists. The whole codex is also now online possibilité de s’unir, de se combiner, dans une nouvelle in high resolution. -
An Overview of the Hittite Language
the Changes from PIE to Anatolian and from An OverviewAnatolian of the to Hittite Hittite, Language, and a Brief History of the Hittite People A.J. Gregoritsch IV The Hittite Language ●Hittite, probably originally called nešili after the city of Neša (sometimes also called Aniša and originally named Kaneš), is an extinct Indo- European language of the Anatolian branch. ●It was spoken by an Indo-European people who at one time controlled much of what is now turkey and Syria. Notable Features of the Language ●Word order is typically SOV. ●It has split ergative alignment. ●Hittite, like PIE, had postpositions. ●Modifiers, including subordinate clauses, typically precede what they modify. ●Sentences and clauses usually begin with a chain of fixed-order clitics. From PIE to Common Anatolian ●Stops: ● Voiced aspirated stops lost their aspiration and merged with the plain voiced stops. – *bh, *b > *b – *dh, *d > *d – *gh, *g > *g – *ǵh, *ǵ > *ǵ – *gwh, *gw > *gw ● This would seem to be a change from the original PIE distinction between voiceless, voiced and voiced aspirated to a new From PIE to Common Anatolian ●Laryngeals: ● Scholars generally agree that *h2 was preserved as a consonant, and it is probable that *h3 was also preserved, though this is disputed. The two also seem to have merged into a single consonant, though there is some small evidence of a possible conditional split w of *h2 into *H and *H . – *h2, *h3 > *H w – also possibly: *h2w, *h2u > *H ● The outcome of *h1 appears to be the same as in the other branches. From PIE to Common -
1. the Appearance of Cuneiform
THE SPREAD OF ‘HEAVENLY WRITING’ Marina ZORMAN University of Ljubljana [email protected] Abstract Cuneiform is the name of various writing systems in use throughout the Middle East from the end of the fourth millennium BCE until the late first century CE. The wedge-shaped writing was used to write ten to fifteen languages from various language families: Sumerian, Elamite, Eblaite, Old Assyrian, Old Babylonian and other Akkadian dialects, Proto-Hattic, Hittite, Luwian, Palaic, Hurrian, Urartian, Ugaritic, Old Persian etc. Over the centuries it evolved from a pictographic to a syllabographic writing system and eventually became an alphabetic script, but most languages used a 'mixed orthography' which combined ideographic and phonetic elements, and required a rebus principle of reading. Keywords: cuneiform; writing; history of writing; writing in Mesopotamia Povzetek Izraz klinopis se uporablja za poimenovanje različnih načinov pisanja, ki so se uporabljali v Mezopotamiji in na Bližnjem vzhodu od konca četrtega tisočletja pr. n. š. do druge polovice prvega stoletja n. š. Pisava, katere osnovni element po obliki spominja na klin, je služila za zapisovanje do petnajst jezikov iz različnih jezikovnih družin: sumerščine, elamščine, eblanščine, stare asirščine, stare babilonščine in drugih akadijskih dialektov, protohatijščine, hetitščine, luvijščine, palajščine, huritščine, urartijščine, ugaritščine, stare perzijščine itd. V teku stoletij se je iz podobopisa razvila v zlogovno in nazadnje v glasovno pisavo, vendar jo je večina jezikov uporabljala tako, da so se v njej izmenoma pojavljali ideografski in fonetičnimi elementi. Branje take pisave je bilo podobno reševanju rebusov. Keywords: klinopis; pisava; vrste pisav; razvoj pisave; pisava v Mezopotamiji 1. The appearance of cuneiform Cuneiform – or 'Heavenly Writing' as this writing system is also called – represents one of the earliest and most influential writing systems of the world. -
Deciphering the Roots Of
Deciphering the Roots of the Indus Civilisation Andrew Robinson pays tribute to Asko Parpola, whose lifelong study of the Indus script has revolutionised our understanding of this ancient civilisation. he decipherment of ancient scripts makes history. Columbus. Each breakthrough was principally the work of one When the Egyptian hieroglyphs started to give person – Jean-François Champollion for Egyptian hieroglyphs, up their secrets in the 1820s, with the help of Henry Rawlinson for Babylonian cuneiform, Michael Ventris for the bilingual Rosetta stone, the historical time Linear B, and Yuri KnoroZov for Mayan glyphs – although in every span was doubled, from about 600 BC, the date case, both the breakthrough and its subsequent confirmation ofT the earliest Hebrew inscriptions, back to about 3000 BC, the depended on the insights of predecessors and rival decipherers, beginning of dynastic rule. Later in the 19th such as Thomas Young (Egyptian hieroglyphs), Edward century, the cuneiform scripts of ancient Hincks (Babylonian cuneiform), Arthur Evans Mesopotamia were deciphered; and (Linear B), and Diego de Landa (Mayan glyphs). scholars were able to read the bureaucratic Several significant scripts remain to be records and literature of ancient Sumer, deciphered, for example, the Etruscan script of Babylon, and Assyria, comparable in age Italy (where the language is unknown) and with those of ancient Egypt. In the 1950s, the rongorongo script of Easter Island. By far the decipherment of Minoan Linear B the most influential and tantalising is the gave us Europe’s earliest readable script, Indus script, most of which is inscribed on written in a form of archaic Greek half seal stones, chiefly made of steatite. -
La Península Ibérica
Los mayas Chichen Itza Yucatan Tikal Guatemala Mapa Maya Según Carlos A. Loprete. Iberoamérica: historia de su civilización y cultura. (4ª ed. Prentice Hall, 2001). Capítulo 2 (Outline) Los mayas. ¿Su origen? Un misterio. Probablemente, durante muchos años o siglos llevaron una vida nómada, en busca de una region propia, hasta que se asentaron en la región de las actuales Yucatán (México), Guatemala, parte de Honduras y El Salvador. Es probable que recorrieran tierras muy frías y muy cálidas y que el descubrimiento del maíz en la zona les diera la oportunidad de quedarse allí y dedicarse a su cultivo. El pueblo maya contó con excelentes artistas, hombres de ciencia, astronómicos y arquitectos. Es posible que por el refinamiento estético de su arte y arquitectura, la precisión de su sistema astronómico, la complejidad de sus calendarios y el desarrollo de su matemática y escritura, no hayan sido superados por ninguna otra civilización del Nuevo Mundo y apenas igualados por muy pocas del Viejo Mundo. Están considerados como “los griegos” de América. Los mayas se establecieron en Centroamérica hacia los años 2000 o 1500 antes de Jesucristo. Durante varios siglos vivieron en un estado de formación cultural, hasta que, aproximadamente en el año 300 d.C., lograron las características esenciales de su civilización, en la región denominada El Petén, en el norte de Guatemala. Esta civilización estuvo integrada por numerosas ciudades-estados, que hablaban una lengua común, aunque con ligeras variantes dialectales, y tenían similares rasgos culturales. Sin embargo, no parecen haber tenido una unidad política ni una ciudad capital. En distintas etapas, fueron levantando grandes ciudades: Tikal (la más Antigua y la mayor) y Uaxactún, en Guatemala; Chichén-Itzá (abandonada y reconstruida tres veces) y Palenque, en México; y Copán, en Honduras.