Southern Illinois University Carbondale

OpenSIUC
Theses Theses and Dissertations

1-1-2008

A Comparative Study of Maya Hieroglyphic

Writing and Japanese Orthography in the Quiriguá
Hieroglyphic Corpus
Yuki Tanaka
Southern Illinois University Carbondale, yukitnka@siu.edu

Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses

Recommended Citation
Tanaka, Yuki, "A Comparative Study of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing and Japanese Orthography in the Quiriguá Hieroglyphic Corpus"
(2008). Theses. Paper 417.

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 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF
MAYA HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING AND JAPANESE ORTHOGRAPHY
IN THE QUIRIGUÁ HIEROGLYPHIC CORPUS

by

Yuki Tanaka

B.A., Ibaraki University, Japan 2002

A Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Master of Arts Degree

Department of Anthropology
in the Graduate School
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
December, 2008
 THESIS APPROVAL

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF
MAYA HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING AND JAPANESE ORTHOGRAPHY
IN THE QUIRIGUÁ HIEROGLYPHIC CORPUS

By

Yuki Tanaka

A Thesis Submitted in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in the field of Anthropology

Approved by:

Dr. Carles Andrew Hofling, Chair

Dr. Anthony K. Webster

Dr. Prudence M. Rice

Graduate School
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
November 7, 2008
 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF

YUKI TANAKA, for the Master of Arts degree in Anthropology, presented on October
31, 2008, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

TITLE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MAYA HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING AND

JAPANESE ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE QUIRIGUÁ HIEROGLYPHIC CORPUS

MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Charles Andrew Hofling

This paper examines consonant-vowel syllabic spelling in Maya hieroglyphic

writing, comparing it with Japanese writing, both of which use logo-syllabograms. The

central aim is to suggest a new perspective that will contribute to building testable

theories for Mayan hieroglyphic spelling rules. Two research questions addressed here

are: 1) how does the ancient Maya spelling system work; and 2) what is the motivation

behind the ancient Mayan people’s choice and use of CV syllabograms and logo-syllabic

writing. I will investigate these questions from the following perspectives: 1) linguistic

approaches to logo-syllabic writing systems; 2) phonetics; 3) a native Japanese speaker’s

intuition; 4) relationships between spoken and written languages. By using linguistic

theories and methods with anthropological comparative methods, I propose the

hypothesis that a word-final vowel in Maya hieroglyphic writing represents either an

echo-vowel, a part of grammatical morpheme, a paragogic vowel accounting for word-

final syllabification, or an underspelled word-final consonant.

i
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This thesis could not have been accomplished without the guidance and support of

so many people. First and the foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Charles

Andrew Hofling, for his advice, support, and guidance. He has played a significant role in

my academic development and has given me consistent help since the very first day in the

graduate school. His profound knowledge of linguistics, Mayan languages and Mayan

hieroglyphic writing have been invaluable resources throughout this process. I am

especially grateful to him for reading over numerous drafts of this thesis and providing

valuable feedback. I thank my committee, Dr. Anthony Webster, who also has given me

great advice which inspired me and guided me to approach the issues from different

perspectives. I am very grateful to Dr. Webster for cultivating my interest in verbal art

and cultural relativity. I also thank Dr. Prudence Rice for her help, guidance and deep

knowledge in Mayan archaeology that have been very beneficial.

I am also grateful to the support staff and faculty in the Department of

Anthropology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The secretaries, Becki Bondi

and Tedi Thomas, have been very helpful and supportive. I am very appreciative of Dr.

Susan Ford, Dr. John McCall, and Dr. Paul Welch for their continuous support and work.

I also would like to thank friends, colleagues, and scholars I met at the Texas

Mayan Meetings. Eric Boot, Carl Callaway, Kerry Hull, Juan Ignacio Cases Martín, Tom

and Carolyn Jones, John Justeson, Alfonso Lacadena, Barbara MacLeod, Simon Martin,

ii
Carlos Pallán Gayol, Yuriy Polyukhovich, and Marc Zender. I also appreciate Alexandre

Tokovinine for providing me with tremendous amounts of resources regarding Mayan

epigraphy and linguistics. My special thanks are addressed to these two very important

scholars and friends. Dr. Terrence Kaufman, I sincerely appreciate him introducing me

the Mayan Meetings in 2004, the last year of the long traditional workshop. I also thank

him for his continued friendship since then. Dr. Harri Kettunen officially introduced me

to the Mayan hieroglyphic writing in Belize. I also thank him for providing me various

resources in Mayan epigraphy, guidance, and knowledge.

I would like to express my special thanks to Dr. Kazuo Aoyama, Dr. Andrew

Balkansky, Dr. John Strong, and Dr. Osamu Takahashi for their help and support to

become a graduate student. I am thankful to my friends and colleagues: Leslie Altnow,

Meghan Harrison, Franz Lauer, Mari Isogai, Juan Luis Rodriguez, Eriko Miura, Bethany

Myers, Corin Pursell, Okagawa Family (especially Daiske, Emiko, and Takushi), John

and Linda McFarlane, Gauri Pitale, Masaru Sato, Go and Akiyo Matsumoto, Mika Seki

(Taniguchi), Chihiro Shibata, Alejandro Strong, and Jane Strong, who have helped,

encouraged, advised, and motivated me to continue graduate work in the United States. I

am truly grateful to Andrew William McFarlane for being in my life and standing by me.

His presence, constant help and encouragement have been a tremendous emotional

support to me in what has been an extremely difficult time.

My final word of thanks is to my family. I thank my grandmother, Kiyo Ikeda, and

my late brother, Kazutaka Tanaka, who have kept me on my toes. Finally, I would like to

thank my parents, Mitsue Ikeda and Toshiaki Tanaka. It is difficult to express in words

iii
how grateful I am for the tremendous amount of support they have given me. Without

their support, I would never have gotten this far.

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... v

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... vii

LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................ix

CHAPTERS

CHAPTER 1 – Introduction............................................................................................ 1
1.1 Objectives and Significance of the Project ....................................... 1
1.2 Former Studies .................................................................................. 4
1.3 Research Questions ........................................................................... 8

CHAPTER 2 – Method and Procedures ....................................................................... 14

2.1 Data ................................................................................................. 14
2.2 Methods and Procedures ................................................................. 17

CHAPTER 3 – Results ................................................................................................. 23

CHAPTER 4 – Discussion ............................................................................................ 53

4.1 Word-final Vowels in Maya .......................................................... 53
4.1.1 Treatment of Word-final Vowels .......................................... 53
4.1.2 Word-final Vowels in Modern Maya ..................................... 55
4.1.3 Verbs ..................................................................................... 65
4.1.4 Nouns ..................................................................................... 70
4.1.5 Enclitic and Demonstrative Pronouns .................................... 76
4.2 Orthographic Rules for Verb Conjugation System in Japanese ...... 78

CHAPTER 5 – Treatments of Non-grammatical Word-Final Vowels ......................... 90

5.1 Echo-vowels and Phonotactics in Maya ......................................... 90
5.2 Word-final Vowels and Japanese Writing System ......................... 94
5.2.0 Introduction ............................................................................ 94

v
 5.2.1 Phonological processes .......................................................... 94
5.2.1.0 Introduction ................................................................. 94
5.2.1.1 Glottal stop insertion ................................................... 95
5.2.1.2 Vowel Devoicing ......................................................... 95
5.2.2 Treatments for Word-final Consonants ................................. 98
5.2.2.0 Introduction ................................................................. 98
5.2.2.1 Paragogization in Borrowing Words ........................... 98
5.2.2.2 Modified Syllables....................................................... 99
5.2.3 Conclusion........................................................................... 106
5.3 Other CV Syllable Writing – Linear B Writing System ............... 108
5.3.0 Introduction .......................................................................... 108
5.3.1 Linear B Writing System ..................................................... 108
5.3.1.1 Basic Writing Criterion ............................................. 108
5.3.1.2 Linear B Syllabary ..................................................... 109
5.3.1.3 CV syllables in Non-CV Structure ............................ 110
5.3.2 Summary and Conclusion .................................................... 118

CHAPTER 6 – Summary and Conclusion .................................................................. 126

BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 132

APPENDICIES
Appendix A – Maya Syllabary .................................................................................... 163
Appendix B – Japanese Syllabary ............................................................................... 166
Appendix C – Japanese Phonemic Inventory.............................................................. 168
Appendix D – Linear B Phonemic Inventory.............................................................. 172

VITA ......................................................................................................................... 173

vi
 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

Table 3-1. QRG Glyphs: Breakdown by Grammatical Categories ............................... 39

Table 3-2. QRG Glyphs: Breakdown by Sub-Types ..................................................... 39

Table 3-3. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Sub-Types .............................. 40

Table 3-4. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Spelling Types........................ 41

Table 3-5. Grammatical Categories: Breakdown by Spelling Types ............................ 42

Table 3-6. The Word-final Syllables............................................................................. 43

Table 3-7. The Word-final Consonant .......................................................................... 44

Table 3-8. Number and Ration of Word-final Vowel in Nouns and Verbs .................. 45

Table 3-9. Spelling Combinations ................................................................................ 46

Table 4-1. Word-Endings in “Biki ti yanaji a ixi’imi” ................................................ 82

Table 4-2. Number and ratio of the Word-final Vowel in the Mopan Maya Story....... 82

Table 4-3. Number and ratio of the Word-final Vowel in Quiriguá Texts ................... 83

Table 4-4. Verb Suffixes ............................................................................................... 84

Table 4-5. Conjugation Chart for aruk ‘to walk’ .......................................................... 86

Table 4-6. Conjugation Chart for aruk ‘to walk’ (orthographical) .............................. 86

Table 4-7. Conjugation Chart for waraw ‘to laugh’ ..................................................... 87

Table 4-8. Conjugation Chart for waraw ‘to laugh’ (orthographical) ......................... 87

Table 4-9. Example of the same Kanji having different readings................................. 88

Table 4-10. Sampson’s Analysis ................................................................................... 88

vii
Table 5-1. Rule of Japanese Paragogization ............................................................... 121

Table 5-2. Linear B Spelling Rules ............................................................................. 122

viii
 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

Figure 1-1. Synharmonic Spellings ............................................................................... 13

Figure 1-2. CVC-Ci Root Intransitive Verbs ................................................................ 13

Figure 2-1. Map of Quiriguá ......................................................................................... 22

Figure 3-1. Chronological Changes of QRG Glyphs: Breakdown by Corpus .............. 47

Figure 3-2. Examples of Glyph Types and Sub-types................................................... 48

Figure 3-3. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Types ..................................... 49

Figure 3-4. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Sub-Types ............................. 50

Figure 3-5. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Spelling Types ...................... 51

Figure 3-6. Example of Phases ..................................................................................... 52

Figure 4-1. Examples of u-mu-ti ................................................................................... 89

Figure 4-2. Examples of ha’-i in QRG.......................................................................... 89

Figure 5-1. Japanese Way of Spelling Maya Words ................................................... 123

Figure 5-2. Example of Linear B Script ...................................................................... 123

Figure 5-3. Linear B Syllabary .................................................................................... 124

Figure 5-4. Example of Ethiopic Script ...................................................................... 125

Figure 5-5. Example of Similar Syllables in Maya ..................................................... 125

ix
 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Objectives and Significance of the Project

This study examines consonant-vowel syllabic spelling in Maya hieroglyphic

writing, comparing it with Japanese writing, both of which use logo-syllabograms. The

central aim of this project is to suggest a new perspective that will contribute to building

testable theories for Mayan hieroglyphic spelling rules. This is also an attempt to bridge

the divide of epistemological criteria between alphabetical writing systems upon which

conventional theories are built, and logo-syllabic -- especially Consonant-Vowel (CV)

syllabic -- writing systems on which ancient Maya orthography is presumably based. Two

pivotal research questions addressed in this project are as follows. How does the ancient

Maya writing system work? What is the motivation behind the ancient Mayan people’s

choice and use of CV syllables and logo-syllabic writing? I investigate these questions

from the following perspectives: 1) linguistic approaches to logo-syllabic writing

systems, especially Western linguistic analyses of Japanese orthography; 2) phonetics;

3) a native Japanese speaker’s intuition; and 4) relationships between spoken and written

languages.

The proposed research inquiries involve general anthropological and linguistic

questions. First, keen observation and deep understanding of a language provide better
 2

insights for a given culture and people due to their close relationship (Hoijer 1954,

Friedrich 1986, Lucy 1984; 1992a; 1992b, Sapir 1921, Whorf 1956 [1941]). From this

perspective, my research will contribute to our understanding not only of Mayan

hieroglyphic scripts but also of the Maya people who invented the writing system.

Second, comparative study deals with differences and similarities in human nature and

cultures. The issues in focus involve an inquiry of human writing systems in a broader

sense. This cross-cultural investigation will expand current knowledge in the above stated

research fields with its potential intellectual merits. Third, introducing new perspectives,

this study will be of practical and theoretical use for research both in the West and in

Japan. Our general understanding of the Maya writing system is that it combines

logograms and CV phonetic syllabic signs and thus resembles the Japanese writing

system (Aoyama 2005, Aoyama and Inomata 1997, Coe 2003, Coe and Van Stone 2001,

Yasugi 1982, 2004a, 2004b, Kettunen and Helmke 2005). However, no intensive and

careful comparative linguistic study of these two logo-syllabic writing systems has been

conducted by either Western or Japanese Mayanists. Also few holistic studies of Maya

script delve deeper into its position, typology, and affinity within the world’s writing

systems.

Phonetic accuracy, phonological perception and orthographic representation do

not perfectly match. According to Burquest, it is widely accepted that “the optimal

orthography for a language is phonological rather than phonetic” (Burquest 2001: 2-3).

Moreover, native intuition sometimes results in different syllabification strategies than

those of non-native scholars (Kubozono 1999b: 77).

 3

As a native Japanese speaker and writer, I have a native speaker’s intuitions

regarding logo-syllabic writing systems. Having majored in Japanese history, I have

developed skills in paleography, philology, and epigraphy, which enable me to perform

further investigations of Japanese orthographic rules. Currently concentrating in linguistic

anthropology at the graduate level in the USA, I have been trained in the Western, or

more specifically American, academic tradition in anthropology, linguistics, and Mayan

epigraphy. For these reasons, I am well qualified to perform a comparative study of

Mayan and Japanese writing. The final products of the proposed investigation will

contribute to bridging Western and Eastern academic traditions in the study of the Maya

and in linguistics. In these respects, the proposed project is hoped to make multi-

disciplinary intellectual contributions to research of the Maya as well as have broader

cross-cultural impacts.

This research is important for its multi-disciplinary intellectual contributions to the

research field of the Maya as well as for broader cross-cultural impacts. The proposed

activity involves with general anthropological and linguistic inquiries which relevant to

cross-cultural intellectual and educational exchanges. The proposed research questions

are intriguing not only for Mayan epigraphers and linguists but also for linguistic

anthropologists and linguists in general engaged in understanding writing systems. The

core comparative method deals with differences and similarities in human thoughts. Maya

hieroglyphic writing is the ancestral heritage and the intellectual property of the Maya

people who still live and speak Mayan languages. Thus, keen observation and

understanding of the hieroglyphic corpus and language systems provide not only better

understanding of the ancient Maya in general, but also may contribute to strengthening
 4

Maya ethnic identity and call more public attention to and appreciation of the modern

Mayan peoples and cultures which continue to survive.

1.2 Earlier Studies

There has been a tremendous amount of linguistic investigation of spoken Mayan

languages since the sixteenth century. Many high-quality dictionaries have been compiled

and published through the centuries including: the Cholti dictionary by Francisco Moran

(1695; known as the Moran Manuscript); the Ch’orti’ dictionary by Wisdom 1950;

transcribed and transliterated by Brian Stross,

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/stross/Ch’orti’’/index.html); the Motul Dictionary (1590,

in Martinez Hernandez 1929); the Diccionario Maya Cordemex (Barrera Vasquez et al.

1980); the Great Tzotzil Dictionary (Laughlin 1975); the Dictionary of the Maya

Language as spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán (Bricker et al. 1998); the Itzaj Maya Spanish -

English Dictionary (Hofling and Tescún 1997); and A preliminary Mayan Etymological

Dictionary (Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson 2003) (see Campbell et al.1978, Weeks

2002, Yasugi 2003 for more detailed information). More data have been archived in

websites such as those of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies,

INC. (FAMSI, http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary.htm) and the Comunidad

Virtual de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural

(http://www.ebiguatemala.org/link/category/33). Recently, Hofling has been working on

an etymological dictionary of proto-Yukatekan with English and Spanish glosses, which

will provide more lexical and grammatical evidence for linguistic decipherment of the
 5

Maya script (Hofling 2006, personal communication).

Likewise, the history of the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphic writing can be

traced back to colonial documents written by missionaries such as the Spanish bishop

Diego de Landa, who was also responsible for destroying almost the entire corpus of the

Maya codices (see Coe 1999 for more detailed history, as well as Macri 1996). Since

then, major advances in decipherment have been made. Yuri Knorozov, a Russian

Egyptologist, made two pivotal claims through intensive studies of the Dresden Codex,

one of four surviving hieroglyphic manuscripts, and of Landa’s “alphabet” (Knorozov

1982, 1990). One is that the Maya writing system was combination of logograms and CV

syllablic signs. The other is that the Maya spelling system follows the rule of

“synharmony,” where the last vowels are silent when the vowels in CV syllabic signs

agree with each other, such as in tzu-lu for tzul ‘dog’ (Figure 1-1, see also Kettunen and

Helmke 2005; Montgomery 2004; Stuart 2006; Yasugi 1982, 2004a, 2004b).

Knorozov’s synharmonic spelling rule:

CV1C / CV1-CV1 > CV1C

In addition to this breakthrough, other crucial advances such as the discovery of

Emblem Glyphs by Heinrich Berlin (1977: 87-90, 182-183), historical content noted by

Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1993), and Eric Thompson’s “T-number” classification were

established in the 1960s. Since then, epigraphic knowledge of Maya glyphs has been

advanced by many scholars, notably including Justeson (1989; Justeson and Mathews

1990), Kelly (1962a, 1962b, 1976), Lounsbury (1984), MacLeod (1984, 2004), Matthews

(Justeson and Mathews 1990; Schele and Mathews 1998), Schele (1998, Schele and
 6

Mathews 1998) and Stuart (1987), Justeson and Campbell (eds. 1984) and Bricker (1986,

1989, 1992), Grube (1992, 2005; Martin and Grube 2000, 2002), Josserand (1991, 1995),

Hopkins (1997), and Martin (Martin and Grube 2000, 2002). Since about 2000,

epigraphers have become more aware of and engaged in the study of linguistic details and

nuances (Coe 1999, 2003; Houston et al. 2000, 2004; Lacadena 2000, 2004; Lacadena

and Wichman 2002, 2004; Montgomery 2002b; Rogers 2005; Stuart 2006; also see

Wichman ed. 2004).

Despite rapid advances in decipherment, several debates about the writing system

remain (Stuart 2006: 16). One unresolved problem is the spelling rules of the Mayan

script, especially of word endings. Although the existence of disharmonic spelling

arrangements such as in <a-ku> for ahk ‘turtle’ that should be spelled as <a-ka> for ak

according to Knorozov’s synharmonic rule, were recognized, they were left as unresolved

questions (Kettunen and Helmke 2005, Houston et al 2000, 2004). In an attempt to solve

this problem, Stephen Houston, John Robertson, and David Stuart (Houston et al. 2000,

2004) proposed the following disharmonic spelling rules:

Houston et al.’s Disharmonic spelling rules:

CV1C / CV1-CV1 > CV1C

CV1C / CV1-CV2 > CV1V1C
CV’C
CVhC

In their “new” rules, when the vowels in CV syllabic signs copy preceding vowels

such as in <tzu-lu> for tzul ‘dog,’ the given spelling is governed by the rule of

“synharmony.” On the other hand, if the following (last) vowel differs from the preceding
 7

vowel, that is to say, if it is “disharmonically” spelled, the former vowel is a long vowel.

These disharmonic rules however do not recognize complex syllables with a glottal stop

(/’/) or /h/, in other words, V’, VV, or Vh are not distinguished.

A similar attempt to explain disharmonic phenomena was made by Alfonso

Lacadena and Søren Wichmann in 2004. They proposed that complex syllable nuclei

were distinguished from short vowels in the script and that vowel length and glottal stops

were clearly distinguished from one another in the orthography (Lacadena and Wichmann

2004; Kettunen and Helmke 2005, Hull 2004) and provided more complex disharmonic

spelling rules:

Lacadena and Wichmann’s Disharmonic spelling rules:

CV1C / CV1-CV1 > CV1C

CV1C / CV1-CV2 > CVVC (V1= a, e, o, u; V2= i )
CV1C / CV1-CV2 > CVVC (V1= i; V2= a)
CV1C / CV1-CV2 > CV’(V)C (V1= e, o, u; V2= a)
CV1C / CV1-CV2 > CV’(V)C (V1= a, i; V2= u)

Rules in the Suffix Domain

Morphemic Vowel Complement Vowel Example Form

/ i, ee, aa, uu, oo / i LOGOGRAM + Ci
/ ii, e', a, u', o' / a LOGOGRAM + Ca
/ i', a', u / u LOGOGRAM + Cu

They argue that there were six different types of syllable nuclei( *V', *Vs', *VV',

*V'h, *Vs'h, *VV'h )["Vs "=intermediate length] (Lacadena and Wichmann 2004:113). In
 8

their revised harmony rules (Lacadena and Wichmann 2004:133), synharmony indicates a

short vowel. As for disharmony, one involving the complement vowel i indicates vowel

length where as the other dysharmony involving the complement vowels a (except i-a,

which indicates vowel length) or u (in the special cases of i-u and a-u) indicates the

presence of a glottal stop. Consequently, preconsonantal /h/'s are excluded from such

broad transliterations and only three kinds of syllable nuclei are represented: (a) V, (b)

VV, and (c) V', the choice depending on whether (a) Rule 1 (Synharmony), (b) Rule 2, or

(c) Rule 3 applies.

Most scholars now accept Lacadena and Wichmann’s disharmonic rules and the

debate seems to be over. Only few criticisms (Anderson 2008, Mora-Marín 2006,

Kaufman 2007) have appeared. However, when one looks into the issue carefully with a

different perspective than an alphabetic system user, several problems emerge.

1.3 Research Questions

First, there is substantial disagreement about historical linguistic data and

reconstructed spelling rules (Kaufman 2007, Kettunen and Helmke 2005). For example,

according to Kaufman and Justeson (2003), the reconstructed word for ‘star’ is *eeq’ in

Greater Lowland Maya and *eek’ in the Classic Maya. According to the disharmonic rule,

it should be spelled as e-k’i. However in the script, this word was spelled as e-k’e and

thus follows synharmonic rule and presumably produces ek’, a word with a short vowel.

Kettunen and Helmke (2005) also point out the necessity of a better understanding of the

spoken vs. written language of the ancient Maya. For that purpose, more precise analyses
 9

of writing systems in general is essential.

Another problem involves word-final vowels both in verbs and nouns. For

instance, the verb cham is spelled CHAM-mi (T736v.173). mi used to be considered as a

phonetic complement and the last vowel i was presumably not pronounced. However,

since CHAM glyphs typically refer to the death occured in the past, these verbs should be

marked as completive (Figure 1-2). In the case of intransitive completive verbs, a suffix -i

is attached to function as a Completive Intransitive Status (CIS) marker and is actually

pronounced. However, if we follow either harmonic or disharmonic spelling rules, the

given verb CHAM is read as chaam without any grammatical morphemes.

As a matter of fact, Mora-Marín argued against the feasibility of the above

disharmonic rules and indeed described their flaws in fuller detail (Mora-Marín 2005).

With acknowledgment to John Justeson’s work, he proposed the “Affixation

Conventionalization Hypothesis”: the convention of consonant deletion or

underrepresentation of word-final consonants is frequently used and when a suffix

appears where it is not required, it is due to conventionalized spellings determined by

affixation patterns or morphological conditioning (Mora-Marín 2005: 44-45).

For a noun example, a syllabic sequence of b’a-ki is considered to yield b’aak

‘bone’ according to the disharmonic spelling rules. According to Boot (2002), the word is

spelled as B’AK-ka, b’a-ka, B’AK-ki, and b’a-ki. If one follows spelling rules, the

former two represent b’ak whereas the latter two spellings indicate b’aak ‘bone’, the

same word with a long vowel. However, interesting examples of b’ak with suffixes can

be found in Modern Ch’orti’’.

 10

(1) War ixsaksak b’aki

War ixsaksak jarari’.
‘You are whitening on the bones,
You are whitening with woven pains.’
(Hull 2004b: 157, boldface and underline added by present author)

(2) E winik ayan ub’aker, uwe’rir, i uch’ich’er, i tamar b’ixir.

‘Humans have their bones, their flesh, and their blood, and therefore they are
alive.
(Hull 2005: 7, boldface and underline added by present author)

In the former case, the word b’ak ‘born’ is written with a topic marker -i, while in

the latter case, it is written with an inalienable body part possessive marker -er, that is

often marked in glyphic texts as B’AK-‘e-le, B’AK-le, or u-b’a-ke-le. If there were no

harmonic or disharmonic spelling rules and a word was read as it was written, b’a-ki

spelling is a perfect way to write b’ak-i ‘the bones’. If the disharmonic rule is applied to

b’a-ki spelling, it yields b’aak and there is no way to write b’ak-i because any kind of

disharmonic spelling combination would produce a long vowel.

Neither Knorozov’s harmonic rule nor the recently generated disharmonic rules

(Houston et al. 2004, Lacadena and Wichmann 2004) account for all alternative spellings.

A fundamental problem involves the conventional assumption that most words have

consonant endings by eliminating a word-final vowel. Such a rule may work in

alphabetical writing systems. However, a non-alphabetic, especially consonant-vowel

syllabic writing system such as Japanese, does not allow the separation of a consonant-

vowel cluster regardless of how it sounds. Even if the word sounds as if it ends with a
 11

consonant, a vowel following right after the last consonant is expected and written with a

CV syllable. According to native speakers’ intuition, once a CV syllable is written, both

consonant and vowel should be pronounced together and no separation is allowed.

Intuitively, a CV sign represents one sound unit, not the sequence of one consonant and

one vowel. For example, the word か /ka/ is [ka] for Japanese speakers and cannot be

considered as a sequence of [/k/ and /a/] as English writers’ intuition tells them about the

word /ka/1.

In addition to the intuitive explanation, vowel insertion is also linguistically

explainable as paragoge or vocalic epenthesis, which is the addition of a sound to the end

of a word and widely seen in Finnish and Japanese (Campbell 2004). Although paragoge

does not seem to occur in Mayan languages in general, because their ancient orthography

frequently has word-final consonant-vowel syllables and because there are linguistic

resemblances among Maya, Japanese, and Finnish (Aksu-Koç et al 2007: 57) 2, I believe

there is room for study in regard to writing and the perception of sound.

The Maya spelling rules may not be as complicated as currently considered.

Former works, such as those by Landa (1978 [1937]), Knorozov (1990 [1967]), Justeson

(1984), Kaufman and Norman (1984), Hofling (1989), Hopkins (1997), and Kaufman

with Justeson (2007), have useful implications for combining current linguistic and

epigraphic knowledge and skills, as Mora-Marín has been attempting. This study follows

Mora-Marín’s Affixation Conventionalization hypothesis, but is new in regard to

1
Square brackets represent words based on native speakers’/writers’ intuitions.
 12

applying another perspective, the comparative study of the Japanese language and its

orthographic systems. Moreover, I attempt a fuller account of echo-vowels than Mora-

Marín does. By using the principles presented above and methods presented in next

chapter, I aim to derive several new spelling rules and consequently attempt to propose a

hypothesis that the last vowel of a word-final CV syllable in Maya hieroglyphic writing

indicates either an echo-vowel, a grammatical morpheme, a vowel supplied for word-

ending syllabification, or a part of grammatical morpheme that signals an underspelled

consonant3.

2
Although similarities between Japanese and Finnish are mentioned in this study, I do not deal
with Finnish and its grammatical structure.
3
Such as -Cal spelled as -Ca ( the word-final consonant l is underspelled).
 13

Figure 1-1. Synharmonic Spellings (modified from Yasugi 1982: 69)

CHAM-mi OCH-chi
cham-i-ø och-i-ø
int.v.-cis-3sg.abs int.v.-cis -3sg.abs
he/she died it entered

u-ti HUL-li
uht-i-ø hul-i-ø
int.v.-cis-3sg.abs int.v.-cis-3sg.abs
it happened he/she arrived

Figure 1-2. CVC-Ci Root Intransitive Verbs (modifying Stuart et.al 2006: 57)
 14

CHAPTER 2

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

2.1 Data

This project deals with four different types of data: Japanese; Modern or post-

colonial Mayan, especially of Ch’oltí’; Ch’orti’; proto-Ch’olan; and hieroglyphic Maya.

The first two languages are used to determine the possibility of developing a general

model of CV clustering and syllabic writing. My assumption is that it is possible to

extract a basic format and strategy that is applicable or at least testable in different

languages. To support my argument and assumptions, I also discuss the typology and

characteristics of writing systems in general in conjunction with the Linear B script,

which is a syllabic writing system with few logographs.

My corpus of Mayan hieroglyphic texts is from Quiriguá, a site established on

the south bank of the Motagua River, a little over 200 km northeast of Guatemala City

(Figure 2-1). The site is located at the intersection of two arterial trade routes, one

between the western highlands of Guatemala and the Gulf of Honduras, and the other

between Copán and the major centers of the Petén.

The archaeological material record at Quiriguá first appears in the Early Classic

period with certain locally manufactured polychrome bowls that resemble late Tzakol

wares from the Petén (Ashmore 1984a, Stross et al. 1983). Such an influence parallels the
 15

introduction into Copán of forms of architecture, monumental modes, and iconographies

from Early Classic Tikal (Ashmore 1984a, Stross et al. 1983). Petén influences that began

to shape Quiriguá in the early fifth century seem to have resulted from a complex

sequence of invasions into the southeast by immigrants from Tikal heading to Copán

(Looper 2003). In addition to Petén influences, there is some evidence of hybridity within

the site. For example, Quiriguá’s wrap-around sculpture style and basal registers are

typically found on Early Classic Tikal and Copán sculpture, while the calendrical

structure and the ritual associations seem to be from Copán (Ashmore 1984a, 1984b;

Looper 2003, Sharer 1978). Frontal composition and iconography seem to be related to

monumental art at Tikal, Uaxactun, and Copán and the Early Classic architecture of

Quiriguá also resembles both Copán and Petén prototypes (Ashmore 1984a, 1984b;

Looper 2003, Sharer 1978).

Yet, unlike other centers such as Tikal, Caracol, or Calakmul, Quiriguá was never

a large urban complex, but rather served as a ceremonial and market center. According to

Looper (2003: 1) and Ashmore (2006: 106), the site is about four square kilometers with

a dispersed rural population of no more than two thousand persons, in which ethnic Maya

may have been a minority. This population ratio is quite high compared to centers of

similar size and power (see Ashmore 2006: Table 5.12 and Rice and Culbert 1990: Table

1.3). Rather than being a largely vacant ceremonial center, Quiriguá may have functioned

more dynamically as an outpost or “way station” established at a crucial point for

overland trade routes between the Petén and Honduras due to its accessibility from all

four cardinal directions.

In addition to these factors, linguistic evidence suggests that Quiriguá was a place
 16

where different language groups came into contact. Recent studies in Mayan linguistics

reveal that the ancient Mayan people used languages of two different branches of the

Mayan language family, Ch’olan and Yukatekan, and many inhabitants of the Mayan

lowlands were very likely bilingual. Hieroglyphic scripts were largely written in Ch’olan

or Ch’olan-Tzeltalan but some Yukatekan influence is apparent (Justeson et al 1985a: 9,

Kaufman and Norman 1984: 77, MacLeod 1984, Schele 1982, Wichmann 2006).

Moreover, variation in the textual corpus may reflect differences in the dialects or

languages used. In addition to Proto-Ch’olan and Yukatekan, Acalán Chontal has been

suggested as a language recorded in hieroglyphic writing (Houston et al. 2005, Wichmann

2006). Some inscriptions found in the Chiapas highlands have been presumed to be

written in proto-Tzeltalan, the ancestor of Tzeltal and Tzotzil (Kettunen and Helmke

2005:12).

Glottochronological calculations suggest that proto-Ch’olan may have started to

separate from Tzeltalan by A.D.100 and then began to split into an eastern and a western

branch by A.D.700 (Garcia de Leon 1979, cited in Kaufman and Norman 1984: 82).

Subsequently, eastern Ch’olan branched out to two daughter languages: Ch’oltí and

Ch’orti’’ (Kaufman and Norman 1984: 82-83). Because many lexical and grammatical

features are shared by Ch’oltí and Ch’orti’, it is widely believed that there is less time

depth in Eastern Ch’olan than in Western Ch’olan, whose separation into Chol and

Chontal is proposed at about A.D.800 (Kaufman and Norman 1984: 82-83). Ch’oltí

became extinct and is only known through a single document called the Moran

manuscript (Fought 1984: 43). Therefore, grammatical sketches and vocabularies heavily

rely on that manuscript and reconstruction, as in Fought 1984. Ch’orti’ is currently

 17

spoken by approximately 75,000 people in southeastern Guatemala (Cholsamaj 1994,

cited in Yasugi 2004: 210). Quiriguá is in an area occupied by speakers of Eastern

Ch’olan in modern times (Wichmann 2006, fig 1). Thus the presumed language used in

Quiriguá was a variety of Ch’olan spoken in the Southern Maya area.

The earliest monument in Quiriguá dates to A.D.480 and the latest one to A.D.795

As Sampson (1985: 12) notes, in most languages the written form is relatively

conservative in comparison with the spoken one. Therefore, glyphic writing used in

Quiriguá seems more likely to be based on proto-Ch’olan than later varieties of the

Ch’olan subgroups, even though the spoken language may have begun to shift from

proto-Ch’olan to eastern Ch’olan.

Both modern and historical linguistic evidence indicate that the language used in

Quiriguá monuments was Ch’olan, perhaps Eastern Ch’olan in the later period.

Archaeological evidence also agrees with this assumption (Ashmore 1984a, 1984b;

Looper 2003, Sharer 1978, Stross et al. 1983). Therefore, this study relies heavily on

Kaufman and Norman’s(1984) reconstructed Proto-Ch’olan grammar and vocabulary in

conjunction with evidence from colonial Ch’oltí and modern Ch’orti’.

2.2 Methods and Procedures

This study follows the procedures described below, which are divided into four

sections.

First, I delve into the Mayan hieroglyphic texts to determine whether there are any

patterns in glyph types (logographs vs. logo-syllables vs. syllables), spellings (harmonic
 18

vs. disharmonic), parts of speech (nouns vs. verbs), and word-final vowels. The analysis

employs both quantitative measures of word-final vowels and qualitative and interpretive

analyses of those vowels. The quantitative measurements are divided into chronological

and grammatical features. The qualitative and interpretive analysis focuses on verb and

noun morphology and treats them separately. Several monuments were made in the same

year but they are analyzed as a group, because the main focus of this study is on the

diachronic patterning of glyph types and their spelling patterns, not synchronic

differences, which I do not think affect the tendency of diachronic change in frequency of

glyph types.

The primary data instrument for examination of glyphic records is the Maya

Hieroglyphic Database optimized for the Macintosh of Apple Computer (Macri 2007).

For interpretation of Classic-Maya and more ancient forms of proto-Ch’olan, works of

Boot (2002) and Kaufman and Norman (1984) are referred to extensively. For Modern

Ch’orti’, works of Hull (2004a, b, 2005), Kaufman and Justeson (2003), and Wichmann

(1999) are primary resources. For the study and example for echo-vowel phenomenon, I

consider Hopkins (1997) and Hofling’s work on modern Mopan Maya, in which an echo-

vowel is preserved (Hofling 2005, 2006, personal communication). Consequently,

Hofling’s current ongoing work on Yukatekan Mayan languages (Hofling 2006, personal

communication) including audio visual aids are referred to.

As a result of previous research on Quiriguá hieroglyphic inscriptions, 1624

visible glyphs were entered into Microsoft excel. These records have also been converted

into a data base with Toolbox, a linguistic dictionary making software developed by the

Summer Institute of Linguistics International(SIL). Each entry includes a variety of

 19

information. For example, there are 11 glyphs for the lexical entry utiy ‘happen.’ Putting

them together in the same entry and analyzing them by root form and grammatical

morphemes, they can be compared easily. The basic template for the database is as

follows (rt= root, lex = lexical entry, ps = part of speech, exm=morphological

segmentation/block transliteration, ps2=morphological analysis, eg = English gloss, sp =

Spanish gloss, blsem = block semantic meaning in Classic Maya, pYglsp = Proto-

Yukatekan glyphic spell [based on MHD’s YUK block transcription], pChglsp = Proto-

Ch’olan glyphic spell [based on MHD’s CH block transcription], glcd = glyph code

[MHD’s graphcodes], time = long count, time1= calendar round, gnbr=Glyph number

given by the PI, src=sitecode, src1=Structure/almanac, src2=monument,

src3=orientation/frame, src4=coordinate, src5=long count of whole text, src6=calendar

round of whole text, src7=Short Gregorian calendar, rgn=Region, note=Memo note =

English note [description from DMH: Dictionary of Mayan Hieroglyph):

\rt K’ÄL
\lex k'älaji
\ps pass.v.
\exm k'äl-aj-i-ø
\ps2 pass.v.-dtr-cis-3sg.abs
\eg it was fastened
\sp fue apretado
\blsem accession
\pYglsp k'äl.ja:ya
\pChglsp k'äl.ja:ya
\glcd MR2 ZU1 32M
\time 9.14.13.04.17.
\time1 12 Kab'an 5 K'ayab'
\gnbr #271
\src QRG
\src1 Great Plaza
\src2 Mon 10/ Stl J
\src3 North
\src4 F04
 20

\src5 9.16.5.0.0.
\src6 8 Ajaw 8 Zotz'
\src7 756
\rgn SEast
\note

In this study, I focus on the first 9 lines of the data categories (from \rt through

\GHglsp). The rest indicate general information of entries not specifically related the

subject of study. In transcribing and transliterating Maya texts, the following

orthographic conventions and rules are applied. Transcriptions are represented in

boldface letters and Logograms are written in BOLDFACE UPPERCASE letters, while

syllabograms are written in bold-faced lowercase letters. Within glyphic transcription,

bold-faced “ . ” represents horizontal connection. Bold-faced “ : ” indicates vertical

juncture. Transliterations are represented as italics. Thus, texts and glyphs are analyzed

as follows:

1. K’ÄL.ja:ya (transcription)
2. k’älaji (transliteration)
3. k’äl-aj-i-ø (morphological segmentation)
4. fasten-DETR-CIS-3SG.ABS (morphological analysis)
5. pass.V. (part of speech)
6. accession (semantic analysis)
7. it was fastened. (translation in English)

The analysis of word structure or morphological analysis relies heavily on the data

extracted from Macri’s database (2007). The transliteration into Mayan is carefully

glossed with morphological segmentation and translated to English, as indicated above.

The spellings in line 1 (transcription) and line 2 (transliteration) are compared to see

whether a given spelling is harmonic or disharmonic. Each verb is also classified into five

categories: transitives, derived transitives, intransitives, derived intranstives and

 21

positionals. All suffixes and their suffixing patterns are quantified and categorized

according to the patterns of CV writing described in later chapters. Then, I will examine

whether an existing disharmonic spelling is due to an echo-vowel, a grammatical

morpheme, or is simply an anomaly, and will propose spelling rules to account for the

data examined.

Next, I describe evidence of word-final vowels in modern and colonial Mayan

languages. Arguing that there are clearly pronounced word-final vowels in certain Maya

languages, I will consider those vowels types, functions and frequencies.

Then, I will briefly discuss consonant-vowel syllabic writing in Japanese

orthography, especially focusing on the word-final vowels. The consonant-vowel cluster

has a crucial relationship with logo-syllabic writing that will be explained and tentatively

described. Although I do not explain Japanese phonology or grammar extensively, by

describing paragoge and verb conjugation, I hope to describe the basic treatments of

word-final vowels in Japanese. Orthographic conventions in the Ainu language and the

Mycenaean Linear B scripts are also discussed briefly in order to shed light on the

relationship between word-final consonants and word-final vowels.

 22

Figure 2-1. Map of Quiriguá

 23

CHAPTER 3

RESULTS

As of March 27, 2007, Macri’s Mayan Hieroglyphic Database contains 36,364

hieroglyphs including unclear but recognizable4 glyphs. At Quiriguá, the total number of

glyphs is 19185, of which 1855 glyphs are analyzable6.

In the Figure 3-1, the breakdown (year of dedication [analyzable glyphs]) is

shown: Stela A (776 [46]), C (776 [79]), D (766 [123]), E (771 [120]), F (761 [115]), H

(751 [50]), I (800 [65]), J (756 [85]), K (805 [38]), S (746 [42]), T (692 [15]), U (480

[20]); Alter L (652 [24]), M (734 [22]), O’ (790 [230]), P’ (795 [130]); Monument 26

(495 [39]); Zoomorph B (780 [18]), G (785 [183]), O (790 [72]), P (795 [262]); cornice

(810 [106]); and the hieroglyphic steps (810 [34]).

Chronological change of glyph numbers in the corpus shows two wavelike peaks:

one in the late Middle Classic (734-776) and other in the late Late Classic (780-800).

There is also a small peak in 810. Those peaks correspond to the peaks of the reigns of

Quiriguá major lords K’ak’-Tiliw Chan Yo’pat (724-785), Sky Xul (785-795/800), and

4
Too eroded to read but you can see there should have been one or more glyphs in a given grid
space.
5
According to MHDB, Quiriguá has 1495 visible glyphs. However, MHDB counts as one
glyph, blocks in which sometimes two or four glyph characters were packed.
 24

Jade Sky (795/800-810?) respectively (Sharer 1978, Martin and Grube 2000, Looper

2003, Ashmore 2006).

Grammatical Categories

Within those 1855 analyzable glyphs, 1637 glyphs can be categorized as Nouns,

Adjectives, Verbs, Prepositions, or Pronouns (Table 3-1). The remaining 154 glyphs are

hard to categorize due to their condition, or to unknown or not-yet-deciphered glyphs.

Among a total of 1637 glyphs, 1350 are noun phrases including personal names,

titles (e.g. ch’uhul ajaw ‘holy lord’, ch’ok=k’aab’a’ ‘youth name’), calendrical terms,

numbers, toponyms, emblem glyphs, and kinship terms. Among them, 57 contain

adjective-noun phrases such as ch’uhul k’aab’a ‘holy name’, na ho’ tun ‘ first five stone’,

or aj ch’uhul hu’un ‘ he of the holy books’). 39 glyphs are relationship/agency phrases

including 23 u-KAB’-hi-ya ‘by his causing/ under the auspices of’ expressions and 16

other possessed noun phrases, often categorized as relationship terms, such as ukanun

‘the guardian of’, and yitah ‘his/her/its companion’. Noun phrases are 82.47% of the

corpus by far the most frequent lexical category in the corpus.

There are 10 adjectives7, including ch’ok ‘young’, ch’uhul ‘holy’, wi’il ‘last’ that

do not occur in adjective-noun phrases. These adjectives make up 0.61% of the total

corpus. When the adjective-noun phrases are taken in account, the percentage of

adjectives in the total corpus becomes 4.09 %.

6
Analyzable means a given glyph is not totally eroded and its type: logograph, syllable, or logo-
syllabic, is able to be determind.
 25

257 glyphs are verbs including 4 compound phrases of a particle i ‘and then’ +

verb (e.g. i uht ‘and then it happens’)8. Verbs constitute 15.7% of all glyphs, the second

most frequent lexical category.

There are 14 prepositions in prepositional phrases (e.g. ti ‘to, of, on’, tu b’ah ‘on

his head’), which accounts for 0.86% of the total grammatically categorized glyphs.

There are 6 pronouns including 2 examples of the demonstrative pronoun ja’-i

‘this, that, that one’, and 4 examples of the reflexive pronoun ub’ah

‘himself/herself/itself’. They account for 0.37% of the corpus, the lowest percentage of

the total.

As the above results indicate, nouns constitute about 82 percent of all

grammatically categorized glyphs, verbs are the second largest group with about 16%;

adjectives, prepositions and pronouns make up remaining 2%. This high percentage of

nouns is partly due to the nature of the corpus of Mayan hieroglyphic inscription on

stelae, lintels, and other stone monuments, which consists largely of calendrical terms,

personal names, royal titles, and toponyms.

Logographs vs. Syllabic Signs

Wichmann and Davletshin (2006) suggested that the percentage of CV syllabic

signs in relation to all signs in hieroglyphic texts increases throughout the Classic period

due to highly motivated phonological transparency in order to mark ethnic identities. In

7
taan ‘on the half-period’ is considered as adjective in a FAMSI dictionary (Montogomery with
Helmke 2007) but in this study it is considered as noun (2 examples are found).
 26

their study, northern Yucatán shows higher phoneticism while the Motagua region, which

contains 32 monuments from Copán and 11 from Quiriguá, has a slower rise in

phoneticism (Wichmann and Davletshin 2006: 103).

Their count excludes all calendrical glyphs in order to obtain an undistorted

proportion in comparison to texts having few calendrical data (Wichmann and Davletshin

2006: 100-101). However, several calendrical logographs consist of syllabic signs, which

spell out the pronunciations of given signs. For example, in 16th century Yukatek, the

17th day sign was called K’ayab’ but in glyphic Maya, it is written as K’AN[a]:si:ya, the

Ch’olan form of the month, and was probably pronounced as k’anasiiy (Kettunen and

Helmke 2005: 48). I consider this sign as a logograph with disharmonically spelled

syllabic signs (LsD). In fact, in this study, all calendrical signs are included in order to

obtain accurate diachronic proportions of signs used in a particular site. Since the main

concern of this study is the spelling rules and the writing systems, comparisons are made

among Logograms (LG), Consonant-Vowel Syllabic sign (CV) or Logo-Syllabic writing

(LS) instead of between logograms and syllables.

Besides the LG-CV-LS categorization, all glyphs are also tagged as

disharmonically spelled syllables (D), harmonically spelled syllables (H), a logograph (L),

an unknown logographic sign with a syllable(s) (Ls), a logograph with a disharmonic

syllable(s) (LsD), a logograph with a harmonic syllable(s) (LsH), a logograph with an

unknown syllable(s) or (another) logograph (LU), a glyph which is unknown or hard to be

determined as either a logograph or a syllable(s) (U); and I call them sub-types. Analysis

8
Sometimes, ub’ah sign is considered as a verb ‘he is’ but in this study it is considered as a
 27

of the distribution of the sub-types is provided in Table 3-3 in the later section (Sign

Composition patterns). L also includes a logograph with third person singular ergative

pronoun u-, such as u-K’AK’ uk’ak’’his fire’; and a logograph with a phonetic

complement preceding the logograph, such as yo-YOP’AT yop’at ‘Yop’at (personal

name)’. However, a logograph with a postfixed phonetic complement such as YOP’AT-ti

yop’at(i) ‘Yop’at (personal name)’ is categorized as LsD. Examples of glyph types are

shown in Figure 3-2.

Within the total 1918 glyphs in Quiriguá corpus, 94 glyphs (4.9%) are unknown

(U) and the rest, 18249 glyphs, are divided into above three categories – LG, CV, LS.

Figure 3-3 shows the chronological distribution of LG-CV-LS types. There are 266

glyphs that are only written with CV syllables, 14.58% of the total definable glyphs.

Logographs are used more frequently. 592 glyphs consist of logographs, which account

for 30.87% of the total. 966 glyphs consist of both logographand syllables (are logo-

syllabic) and make up 52.96% of the total 1824 glyphs.

Comprising about 13 to 20 % share of the corpus, Consonant-Vowel syllables

(CV) are relatively constant through time. They are the least common type except in 495,

734, and 800. The more frequent types of the corpus (LG in 495 and 734; LS in 800)

show a decline but it is not easy to relate CV’s increases and others’ decreases.

The percentage of logographs (LG) undergoes considerable fluctuation. On the

possessed noun phrase “he of ” (2 examples are found).

9
This number is different from analyzable glyphs which number 1855. The difference of 31
glyphs is based on its analyzability. If a given glyph is not totally eroded and it can be
determined if it is a logograph, syllable, or logo-syllabic, the glyph is counted as analyzable, but
since its type cannot be determined, it cannot be tagged.
 28

whole, its usage gradually declined through time but it remains the principal component

of texts with three peaks until the end of the Middle Classic. The first peak is shown in

the earliest monument, stela U in 480. The percentage declined for next two monuments

but increased dramatically in 692. The usage of LG peaked at 77.78% in 780 for the last

time and remained stable at the 20 to 30% level for the rest of the time.

In contrast, the usage of logo-syllabic mixed signs (LS) increases over time. The

LS and LG glyphs are used with similar percentages until 780. That year, no CV is used

and the texts are composed of only LG and LS. After that, LS became more frequent than

LG and is the principal component of the corpus.

It should be noted that the results for 692 and 780 should be used with caution

because the monuments contain a very small number of glyphs. Stela T (692) consists of

only 15 glyphs and 13 of them are indefinable or unknown (U). Zoomorph B for 780

contains only 18 glyphs but all of them are classifiable. Similarly, 746 [Stl S] and 751 [Stl

H] have relatively high percentages of unknown glyphs and that may affect the results. In

general, Quiriguá shows an increase of logo-syllabic signs, a decrease of logograph-only

usage, and constant but small number of purely syllabic signs (CV). This indicates a

different tendency from that of Wichmann and Davletshin’s 2006 study.

Sign Composition Patterns

Table 3-2 shows Sub-types of Quiriguá glyphs. 592 glyphs only consist of

logographs (L), which account for 30.87% of the total. The number of disharmonically

spelled syllables (D) is 170, which is a 62.5% of total glyphs spelled with syllables and an

8.86% of the total glyphs. On the other hand, the number of glyphs of harmonically
 29

spelled syllables (H) is 102. This accounts for 37.5% of total glyphs written with CV

signs and for 5.32% of the total glyphs.

The number of logographs with a syllabic sign or signs whose spelling pattern is

uncertain (Ls) is 126, which constitutes 13.13% of the total logo-syllabically written

glyphs and 6.57% of the total glyphs. There are 327 logographs to which a

disharmonically spelled syllable(s) is attached (LsD). They accounts for 34.06% of the all

logo-syllables and for 17.05% of the total glyphs. There are 175 Logographs with a

harmonically spelled syllable(s) (LsH), making up 18.23% of logo-syllables and 9.12% of

all glyphs. Lastly, the number of logographs with an unknown syllable(s) or (another)

logograph (LU) is 332, which accounts for 34.58% of logo-syllables and for 17.31% of

the total glyphs.

Figure 3-4 and Table 3-3 show the chronological distribution of each glyph type.

The high percentage and number of uncertain glyphs (U) during the period of the Middle

Classic (480, 495) and in the early Late Classic (692-751) is probably due to the state of

preservation – the older a monument gets, the more the deterioration progresses.

Logographs maintain the highest proportion to total through time but this is because CV

and LS are subcategorized into D and H, and Ls, LsD, LsH, and LU respectively. The

average percent of L over time is 30.87% while that of CV is 13.87% (=D[8.55%]+

H[5.32%])and that of LS is 50.36% (=Ls[6.57%]+ LsD[17.15%]+ LsH[9.33%]+

LU[17.31%]). Thus, LS makes up the highest proportion to the total corpus.

Disharmonic vs. Harmonic Spelling Patterns

Harmonic or disharmonic reading cannot be determined for L, Ls, LU, and U

 30

(1144 signs). The remaining, 774 signs show either harmonic or disharmonic spelling

patterns in their word endings (D, H, LsD, and LsH). Of the total definable spelling

patterns, 164 are D (21.19%), 102 H (13.18%), 329 LsD (42.51%), and 179 LsH

(23.13%) (Table 3-4). The chronological distribution of them is shown in the chart

graphically (Figure 3-5).

It is a common belief that the Mayan hieroglyphic writing has harmonic spelling

as a default (Coe 2001: 20-21, Montgomery 2002b: 124-126). However, in Quiriguá, that

is not the case. Disharmonic spelling is more common than harmonic spelling. There are

281 signs, 36.3% of the total, showing the harmonic pattern while 493 signs, 63.7% of the

total, end with disharmonic spelling patterns. Moreover, Logo-syllabic mixed spellings

are preferred over syllable-only spellings. Indeed, through time, LsD is the most common

style among the four. LsH is the next and D follows right after the LsH. H is the least

common among four types of spellings. The number of spellings using only syllabic signs

is higher in early periods and is taken over by Logo-syllabic types when texts become

longer (also see Table 3-1). In 692, there are no examples of either harmonically or

disharmonically spelled words. In 780, LsH is the only type of the spelling used in the

corpus. However, again, the texts from 692 and 780 are very short compared to others,

thus those extreme results should be considered cautiously.

Grammatical Categories and Spelling patterns

Glyphs are analyzed according to their compostions: syllabic, logographic, or

mixed (logo-syllabic). Do their compositions show any pattern based on their

grammatical categories? Are there any differences in the use of disharmonic vs. harmonic
 31

spelling patterns in those categories? For example, do nouns show a preference for

harmonic patterns while verbs frequently take disharmonic patterns? The results are

shown in Table 3-5.

No significant patterning was found in the relationship between grammatical

categories and spelling types for adjectives, prepositions, and pronouns. This is partly

because they make up only 2% of total part of speeches. Noun Phrases tend to be written

with logographs more than verbs. Nouns are also written more with disharmonic spellings

than with harmonic spellings. Verbs show the same tendency regarding spellings. The

majority of verbs are written logo-syllabically, especially with the combination of

logograph and disharmonic syllabic signs (LsD). Such results agree with the general

tendency in the Quiriguá corpus that LS is the most used sign pattern and disharmonic

patterns appear more frequently than harmonic ones (also see Table 3-3, 3-4). The high

frequency of logographs in noun phrases may indicate that noun phrases tend to end with

the noun root. In contrast, verb signs often end with suffixed syllables; because in

discourse, verbs require conjugation and those syllables suffixed to logographs or final

syllables of syllabic writing are probably often signaling grammatical morphemes of a

given verb.

The word-final vowels

Classic Mayan probably has five vowels (Kaufman and Norman 1984, Stuart

2006: 34) and, hypothetically, they could be used equally. Table 3-6 shows frequencies

when those five vowels are in word-final position. The disaggregated data of noun and

verb in those word-final syllables are also shown in Table 3-8, because there might be
 32

some differences between nouns and verbs regarding word-final syllables. The

breakdown of the word-final syllables other than nouns and verbs are: a (1 unknown

(hereinafter called UN)), aj (2 UN), b’a (1 UN, 1 reflexive pronoun (hereinafter called

ref.pron.)), b’o (1 UN), chi (2 UN), hi (1 ref.pron.), i (2 demonstrative pronouns), ja (2

UN), ji (2 UN), ji-ya (1 UN), k’a (1 UN), la (1 UN), li (1 UN), ma (1 UN), ni (adjectives

3 UN), ti (2 UN), wa (2 UN), xi (1 UN), ya (5 UN), and yi (1 UN).

It seems that complex syllabic signs such as ka-ja, or wa-ni-ya(-ni) tend to

appear as verb endings while nouns tend to end with simple syllabic signs, such as a, ma,

or ta (Table 3-8). No noun takes more than two syllabic signs after its root. Among those

simple syllabic signs, it seems that there are preferences based on word classes. For

example, verbs prefer aj, ja, li-ya, or ti-ya, while nouns prefer a, ko, ma, or ta. Some

syllabic signs are suffixed to both nouns and verbs but they also have different

distributions. For example, hi, ji, la, na, ni, and pi are more common with nouns. In

contrast, ja is preferred more in verbs. li, wa, and ya have less marked differences and ti

is almost equally used. This might be related to the distribution of grammatical

morphemes and the phonological patterning of word-final consonants and vowels. Those

issues will be discussed in the following chapters.

The Table 3-7 shows whether vowels pattern with particular consonants. This

chart is intended to show whether there are phonotactic rules regarding vowels and nouns

because in table 3-8, it appears that nouns and verbs have different patterns in their

choices of word-final syllables. Syllables whose vowels cannot be determined (e.g. li/le,

ma?) are eliminated, thus the total number of syllables is 762. An apostrophe ( ’ )

represent a glottal stop before a bare vowel.

 33

a and i are the most frequent vowels, o is in the third position, u follows that, and

e is barely used. There are several preferred combinations of syllables, ti-ya or ji-ya for

example, as well as frequently used single syllables such as ma, wa, ya, or ti.

u, e, and o endings are more common on nouns than verbs. There are only two

examples of verbs with u, e, or o endings, while nouns have 38 examples. An example of

o ending on a verb is u-to, which is an underspelling of utoom (usually spelled u-to-ma)

‘it will happen’. Another example of u ending is u-14-TZ’AK-b’u, which is also an

underspelling of ukanlajun=tz’akab’ul (usually spelled u-14-TZ’AK-b’u-li) ‘he of the

fourteenth in the succession of the lineage.’

Nouns with i endings are four times as frequent as verbs with i endings. Complex

syllables with i also appear more on nouns. a endings are more common on Nouns. The

number of verbs with a endings is exactly twice that of nouns. Ja, CV-ja, and CV-ya

(CV=CV, CV-CV, CV-CV-CV ...) endings are almost always suffixed on verbs. When ya

is combined with other syllables, the preceding vowel is usually Ci.

The table below shows numbers and ratio to total number in each word class

(Table 3-8). Nouns take a endings more than i endings, but the difference between them

is small. With i endings, nouns tend to take more complex syllables than other vowel

endings. On the other hand, a endings are much more common than i endings on verbs. In

fact, nearly 70% of verbs end with Ca or CV-Ca (CV=CV, CV-CV, CV-CV-CV...)

forms. i ending is the second largest group and is usually Ci rather than complex syllables

(CV-Ci). u, and o endings barely occur and are examples of underspelling.

In several cases, within a sequence of syllables, such as li-ji-ya or wa-ni-ya, both

harmonic and disharmonic spelling patterns occur. Table 3-9 focuses specifically on the
 34

word-final syllables and does not include disharmonic spellings within a root when the

word is written with only syllables (D). For example, u-to-ma uhtoom ‘it will happen’ is

categorized as a word with a word-final syllable ma. These examples might indicate

flaws in the D-H-LsD-LsH categorization. To investigate the distribution of vowels, those

suffixed syllables are divided into five phases (see Figure 3-5) as indicated in the Table 3-

9.

With only one exception, which is the i-o combination in phases 2, there are only

two word-final vowels used after phase 2, a and i. Among those examples in phases 2 to

5, the most frequently used combination is Ci-Ca (95+5+3=103 examples). Co-Ca

follows the next (30 examples) and Ca-Ca is the third frequent combination (21+2=23

examples). Since those syllables in phase 2 to 5 serve as grammatical morphemes, the

high frequency of a and i vowels seems to be explainable. For example, a-jV (V=a, i, u,

e, o) and Ci-a patterns are common disharmonic spelling patterns in Quiriguá. In fact,

they form grammatical morphemes that are important to determine the meaning of the

word. Indeed, the combinations of a-i and i-a are not rare in Quiriguá corpus. This

combination often appears as the ji-ya suffix pattern, which is now commonly read as Vj-

iiy (Stuart 2006, Wald 2004).

The word-final vowels: Examples

The numbers of harmonic/disharmonic spellings in Table 3-9 are slightly different

from that in Table 3-5. This indicates that there is a flaw in the D-H-LsD-LsH

categorization. Several words categorized as D/LsD are actually H/LsH in relation to their

roots. For example, tz’a-pa-ji-ya tz’apajiiy ‘it was planted’ consists of two parts:
 35

positional verb tz’a-pa tz’ap ‘to plant upright’ (harmonic); and grammatical morphemes:

a passive marker pa-ji –aj (disharmonic, because it is not in a word-final position, vowel

length does not change) and completive aspect marker ji-ya –iiy (disharmonic).

Some words do not take disharmonic spelling rules for intermidiate syllables. For

example, the word ka-yo-ma is read as kayoom ‘he is a fisherman’ by reading first two

syllables (ka-yo) as they are spelled (kayo-) and the next sequence, yo-ma is read as –

yoom (Stuart 2006: 51). Even though all three syllabic signs in ka-yo-ma kayoom are

spelled disharmonically, the rule is only applied to yo-ma, and not to ka-yo. When the

root word kay10 ‘fish’ is syllabically spelled, it is written as ka-ya (Boot 2002: 44) and

according to the synharmonic rule, the root vowel is short. In order to keep this root word

kay with a short vowel, the disharmonic rule cannot be applied to ka-yo-ma.

Another example is that if a word is spelled as cha-ho-ma, it should be read as

chahoom ‘scatterer’; and ho in the middle of the word does not indicate that the vowel of

the root is long. However, if the word is spelled as cha-ho[e.g. ZmphG: L’02a1, ZmphP:

C07b, U02b, V02b], it is possible to regard ho as a part of disharmonic spelling which

would lead to an unknown word *chaah11. Scholars usually suggest that this cha-ho is an

underspelling of cha-ho-ma because of context and these syllabic signs function like one

logograph. This leads to another issue. It is generally believed that a word-final vowel is

10
In proto-Ch’olan, it should be chay due to the phonological change from proto-Mayan /k/ to
/ch/ in Ch’olan language (Kaufman and Norman 984, Stuart 2006).

11
It is now believed that the orthographic distinction between velar and glottal stops (j/h
contrast) exists in the Classic period (Grube 2004), this word is not the word chaaj ‘drops’. For
ch’aaj ‘drops’, a ji (T758b) sign is used instead.
 36

silent but in this cha-ho spelling, the word-final syllable ho is pronounced.

Another example of disharmony is u-a combination found in 18-u-b’a sentence

[ZmphG: S06b]. This is actually part of the personal name (the ruler of Copán,

Waxaklajun Ub’aah K’awiil) and the disharmonic spelling does not indicate the vowel

length on u. A similar construction is found in u-te [StlI: D07b]. This is a disharmonic

spelling but represents the third person singular u- plus noun te’ meaning ute’ ‘his tree’

and is categorized as L.

u-cho-ka-LU is another example of a flaw in disharmonic theory. LU is an

unknown logograph or syllable. From the context, this sign should be a verb chok and LU

should be a CV syllable forming a grammatical morpheme. This spelling is interesting

because chok ‘to scatter’ is usually spelled as cho-ko, or more fully, u-cho-ko-wa

uchokow ‘he scattered’; and from this harmonic spelling, the root should have a short

vowel. However, according to disharmonic theory, if a spelling combination is Co-Ca,

the word should have a long vowel. If the root vowel remains short, the disharmonic ka

does not affect the spelling of the root but is a bridge to the following unknown syllable

and in that case the vowel a is not silent but pronounced.

Another example is the south sign ma-yi-no-la maay-nool(?)12.This sign usually

consists of four syllable signs. However, in some cases, it is spelled as no-ma-yi. This

sign could be something else, yet scholars usually suggest that it is same ma-yi-no-la

maay-nool sign representing ‘south’ with the last syllable la (or the word-final consonant

12
South in Ch’oltí’ is nool (Feldman 2007). The word may means ‘tabaco’ in Yukatek (Kaufman
and Justeson 2003:1144) and ‘chilacayote’ in Ch’ol (Kaufman and Justeson 2003: 1127).
 37

l) omitted, instead of reading it as ma-yi-no mayiin. If both may-yi-no and ma-yi-no-la

are the same signs, it is important to utter the word-final vowel o in ma-yi-no spelling,

for o is supposed to signal the underspelled word-final consonant l.

Summary

The result from Quiriguá corpus is summarized as follows. The peak of the

number of carved monuments and glyphs is during the early Late Classic, more

specifically, 761-795. Within this period, two peaks are shown that correspond to the rise

of two major lords, K’ak’-Tiliw Ch’an Yo’pat (724-785) and his son Sky Xul (785-

795/800) (Sharer 1978, Martin and Grube 2000, Looper 2003, Ashmore 2006). The

frequencies of sign types, such as logograph, syllables, or logo-syllables, change

diachronically. In the early periods of the site until around the time of K’awil Yo’pat,

logographs are used the most. The ratio changed when K’ak’-Tiliw Ch’an Yo’pat came to

the throne. The gap between logograph and logosyllables was reduced; and in the latter

period of his rule, logosyllabic writing became more frequent than logographic writing.

During the reign of Sky Xul and his successor Jade Sky (795/800-810?), logosyllables

became frequent while logographs are used much less, as little as syllable-only signs.

Most of the logographs are nouns, which make up almost 80% of glyphs, while

logosyllabic signs are used for both nouns and verbs with relatively similar percentages.

Disharmonic spellings are more common than harmonic spellings. There is a variety of

word-final syllabic signs but syllables end with a or i are more frequently than with u, e,

or o. Nouns tend to take a and i endings in similar frequencies, while nearly 70% of verbs

end in i. Among possible spelling combinations, e-o, e-u, i-e, o-e, o-u, and u-e never
 38

appear. In contrast, the combinations of a-a, a-i, i-a, and u-i are very common and

frequently used. There are several examples indicating that word-final vowels are not

silent but rather pronounced in order to make grammatical or contextual sense within the

text. A number of examples do not seem to fit conventional harmonic and disharmonic

theories. These discrepancies and possible reasons for them will be discussed in the next

chapter.
 39

Grammatical Category
Sub-Category Number Number Ratio
NP 1293
NP 1350 82.47%
Adj+N 57
Adj 10 0.61%
Adj=Adjective
V 257 15.70% Dem=Demonstrative
Prep 14 0.86% N=Noun
NP=Noun Phrase
Dem 2 Prep=Prepositional Phrase
Pron 6 0.37%
Reflx 4 Pron=Pronoun
Reflx=Reflexive
Total 1637 100% V=Verb

Table 3-1. QRG Glyphs: Breakdown by Grammatical Categories

Ratio to Ratio to
Spellings Glyphs
its type Total

D 170 62.50% 8.86%

H 102 37.50% 5.32%

Syllables 272 100% 14.18%

L 592 100% 30.87%

Ls 126 13.13% 6.57%

LsD 327 34.06% 17.05%

LsH 175 18.23% 9.12%

D=Disharmonically spelled syllables
LU 332 34.58% 17.31% H=Harmonically spelled syllables
Logo- L=Logograph
syllabic 960 100% 50.05% Ls=Logograph w/ Syllable in unknown spelling
LsD=Logograph w/ Disharmonic syllable
U 94 100% 4.90% LsH=Logograph w/ Harmonic syllable
LU=Logograph w/ Unknown syllable or logograph
Total 1918 100% 100% U=Unknown glyph

Table 3-2. QRG Glyphs: Breakdown by Sub-Types

 40

Long Count GY D H L Ls LsD LsH LU U Total

9.2.5.11.0. 480 1 1 12 1 1 4 20
9.3.0.0.0. 495 7 1 17 1 1 3 9 39
9.11.0.11.11. 652 5 9 7 3 24

9.13.0.0.0. 692 2 13 15
9.15.3.2.0. 734 2 3 3 8 2 1 3 22
9.15.15.0.0. 746 1 1 14 3 4 19 42
9.16.0.0.0. 751 3 3 12 1 6 3 6 16 50

9.16.5.0.0. 756 10 7 39 2 15 8 2 2 85

9.16.10.0.0. 761 9 7 49 4 24 11 4 7 115

9.16.15.0.0. 766 9 6 62 21 13 7 5 123
9.17.0.0.0. 771 12 4 40 2 37 18 7 120

9.17.5.0.0. 776 6 7 50 6 37 18 1 125

9.17.10.0.0. 780 14 1 3 18
9.17.15.0.0. 785 10 4 59 13 35 27 19 16 183
9.18.0.0.0. 790 35 11 68 29 30 17 112 302

9.18.5.0.0. 795 33 21 89 47 62 23 117 392

9.18.10.0.0. 800 9 8 14 3 13 10 8 65
9.18.15.0.0. 805 4 12 4 9 6 3 38

9.19.0.0.0. 810 12 14 27 14 22 16 35 140

164 102 592 126 329 179 332 94 1918

D=Disharmonically Spelled Syllables LsH=Logographs w/ Syllables

H=Harmonically Spelled Syllables (Harmonic Spelling)
L=Logographs Only LU=Logographs w/ Unknown
Ls=Logographs w/ Syllables (Uncertain Spelling) Syllables
LsD=Logographs w/ Syllables (Disharmonic U=Unknown Glyphs
Spelling) GY=Gregorius Year

Table 3-3. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Sub-Types (numbers)

 41

Long Count GY D H LsD LsH Total

9.2.5.11.0. 480 1 1 1 3
9.3.0.0.0. 495 7 1 1 9
9.11.0.11.11. 652 5 7 12
9.13.0.0.0. 692 0
9.15.3.2.0. 734 2 3 8 2 15
9.15.15.0.0. 746 1 1 3 4 9
9.16.0.0.0. 751 3 3 6 3 15
9.16.5.0.0. 756 10 7 15 8 40
9.16.10.0.0. 761 9 7 24 11 51
9.16.15.0.0. 766 9 6 21 13 49
9.17.0.0.0. 771 12 4 37 18 71
9.17.5.0.0. 776 6 7 37 18 68
9.17.10.0.0. 780 1 1
9.17.15.0.0. 785 10 4 35 27 76
9.18.0.0.0. 790 35 11 30 17 93
9.18.5.0.0. 795 33 21 62 23 139
9.18.10.0.0. 800 9 8 13 10 40
9.18.15.0.0. 805 4 9 6 19
9.19.0.0.0. 810 12 14 22 16 64
Total 164 102 329 179 774
Ratio 21.19% 13.18% 42.51% 23.13% 100%

D=Disharmonically Spelled Syllables

H=Harmonically Spelled Syllables
LsD=Logographs w/ Syllables (Disharmonic Spelling)
LsH=Logographs w/ Syllables (Harmonic Spelling)

Table 3-4. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Spelling Types (numbers)

 42

Sub
PS Subcategory D H L Ls LsD LsH LU U Total
total
NP 134 76 547 83 200 140 151 19 1350
Adj 1 3 1 2 1 2 10
V 21 17 31 16 124 37 8 3 257
PP 1 3 6 2 1 1 14
Dem 2 2
Pron 6
Reflx 1 2 1 4
Total 158 97 588 101 328 179 161 25 6 1637

Adj=Adjective NP=Noun Phrase PS=Part of Speech

Agn=Agency Prep=Prepositional Phrase Reflx=Reflexive
Dem=Demonstrative Pron=Pronoun V=Verb

Table 3-5. Grammatical Categories: Breakdown by Spelling Types (numbers)

 43

Ending # PS # Ending # PS # Ending # PS #

N 7 N 20 N 1
a 8 la 24 se 1
V V 3 V
N 1 N N 12
aj 11 la. ja 2 ta 12
V 8 V 2 V
N 10 N N 3
b'a 13 la, ja, ya 1 te 3
V 1 V 1 V
N 1 N 1 N 29
b'a/ma 2 le 1 ti 56
V V V 25
N 1 N 28 N
b'o 2 li 37 ti, ji, ya 1
V V 8 V 1
N 1 N N
b'u 2 li, a, ji, ya 1 ti, ya 33
V 1 V 1 V 33
N N N
b'u, ji 1 li, ji, ya 1 to (-ma) 1
V 1 V 1 V 1
N N N
ch'a (-j) 1 li, ja 1 to, ma 1
V 1 V 1 V 1
N N N 3
ch'a, ja 1 li, ja, ya 1 tzi 3
V 1 V 1 V
N 6 N N 1
chi 10 li, ,ji 1 tzu 1
V 2 V 1 V
N 21 N N 1
hi 25 li, ya 10 u 1
V 3 V 10 V
N 1 N 2 N 50
hi, li 1 li/le 2 wa 74
V V V 22
N 6 N 2 N
ho (-ma) 6 lo 2 wa, ni, ya 1
V V V 1
N N 29 wa, ni, ya, N
i 2 ma 30 1
V V ni V 1
N 2 N N 1
ja 26 ma, ja 1 wa/ma 1
V 22 V 1 V
N 31 N 1 N 3
ji 39 ma? 1 wi 5
V 6 V V 2
N 31 N N
ji, ya 40 mi 2 wi, ya 1
V 8 V 2 V 1
N 1 N 21 N 3
ji/li 1 na 24 wo 3
V V 3 V
N 3 N 2 N 2
ka 3 ne 2 xi 3
V V V
N N 72 N 76
k'a 1 ni 79 ya 97
V V 3 V 16
N N 3 N 1
ka, ja 2 ni, li 3 ya, ji 1
V 2 V V
N N 1 N 2
ka, LU 1 ni/wi 1 ya, wa 2
V 1 V V
N 5 N 2 N 1
ki 5 nu 2 ya/ma 1
V V V
N 7 N 3 N 4
ko 7 o 3 yi 9
V V V 4
N 3 N 1 N 1
ku 3 pa 1 yu 1
V V V
N 1 N 23 N 544
ku, li 1 pi 24 Total 784
V V 1 V 204

Table 3-6. The word-final syllables

 44

V C # PS # V C # PS # V C # PS #
N 7 N N 1
7(a) 8 7(i) 2 7(u) 1
V V V
N 10 N 6 N 1
b'(a) 13 ch(i) 10 b'(u) 2
V 1 V 2 V 1
N N 21 N 3
ch'(a)(-j) 1 h(i) 25 k(u) 3
V 1 V 3 V
u
ch'a- N N 1 N 2
1 b'u-j(i) 2 n(u) 2
j(a) V 1 V 1 V
N 2 N 31 N 1
j(a) 26 j(i) 39 tz(u) 1
V 22 V 6 V
j
N N N 1
j ka-j(a) 2 li-j(i) 1 y(u) 1
V 2 V 1 V
N N 1 N 9
la-j(a) 2 ya-j(i) 1 Total 10
V 2 V V 1
N N 5
ma-j(a) 1 k(i) 5
V 1 V
N 3 N 1 V C # PS #
k(a) 3 hi-l(i) 1
V V N 1
l(e) 1
N N 1 V
k'(a) 1 ku-l(i) 1
V V N 2
l n(e) 2
N 20 N 28 V
l(a) 24 i l(i) 37 e
V 3 V 8 N 1
s(e) 1
N 29 N 3 V
m(a) 30 ni-l(i) 3
V V N 3
m t(e) 3
N N V
to-m(a) 1 m(i) 2
V 1 V 2 N 7
Total 7
N 21 N 72 V 0
n(a) 24 n(i) 79
V 3 V 3
a n
N 1 wa-ni- N
p(a) 1 1
V ya-n(i) V 1 V C # PS #
N 12 N 23 N 3
t(a) 12 p(i) 24 7(o) 3
V V 1 V
N 50 N 29 N 1
w(a) 74 t(i) 56 b'(o) 2
V 22 V 25 V
w
N 2 N 3 h(o) N 6
ya-w(a) 2 tz(i) 3 6
V V (-ma) V
N 31 N 3 N 7
ji-y(a) 40 w(i) 5 o k(o) 7
V 8 V 2 V
la-ja- N N 2 N 2
1 x(i) 3 l(o) 2
y(a) V 1 V V
li-a-ji- N N 4 t(o) N
1 y(i) 9 1
y(a) V 1 V 4 (-ma) V 1
li-ji- N N 234 N 3
1 Total 309 w(o) 3
y(a) V 1 V 59 V
N N 22
li-y(a) 10 Total 24
V 10 V 1
Y
ti-ji- N
1
y(a) V 1
N
ti-y(a) 33
V 33
wa-ni- N
1
y(a) V 1
N
wi-y(a) 1
V 1
N 76
y(a) 97
V 16
N 264
Total 404
V 132
Table 3-7. The word-final consonant
 45

WFV
a i u e o Total
PS

N 264 234 9 7 22 536

% 49.25% 43.66% 1.68% 1.31% 4.10% 100%

V 132 59 1 0 1 193

% 68.39% 30.57% 0.52% 0% 0.52% 100%

PS=Part of Speech
WFV=Word-final Vowel

Table 3-8. Number and Ration of word-final vowel in Nouns and Verbs
 46

Spelling Root[CV1]
CV2-CV3 CV3-CV4 CV4-CV5 CV5-CV6 Total
Combination - CV2

a-a 171 21 2 194

a-e 2 2
a a-i 127 5 3 1 136
a-o 29 29
a-u 12 12
e-a 19 19
e-e 1 1
e e-i 3 3
e-o 0
e-u 0
i-a 41 95 5 3 144
i-e 0
i i-i 67 12 79
i-o 1 1
i-u 1 1
o-a 26 30 56
o-e 0
o o-i 10 10
o-o 20 20
o-u 0
u-a 21 2 23
u-e 0
u u-i 160 9 169
u-o 3 3
u-u 8 8
Total 721 175 10 3 1 910

: Disharmonic Spelling

: Harmonic Spelling

: No Example

Table 3-9. Spelling Combinations

 47

Number of Glyphs
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
[480] Mon21/StlU 20
[495] Mon 26 39
[652] Mon 12/Altar L 24
[692] Mon 20/Stl T 15
[734] Mon 13/Alt M 22
[746] Mon 19/Stl S 42
50
D e d ic a tio n o f M o n u m e n ts

[751] Mon 08/ Stl H

[756] Mon 10/ Stl J 85
[761] Mon 06/Stl F 115
[766] Mon 04/ Stl D 123
[771] Mon 05/ Stl E 120
[776] Mon 01/ StlA 46
[776] Mon 03/ StlC 79
[780] Mon 02/ ZmphB 18
[785] Mon 07/ ZmphG 183
[790] Mon 15/ ZmphO 72
[790] Mon 23/ Alt O' 230
[795] Mon 16/ ZmphP 262
[795] Mon 24/ AltP' 130
[800] Mon 09/ StlI 65
[805] Mon 11/ StlK 38
[810] Cornice 106
[810] HG Step 34

Figure 3-1. Chronological changes of QRG Glyphs: Breakdown by Corpus

 48

LG CV
L D H

6-AJAW tu-tu-ma u-tza-pa-wa

wak ajaw tutuum(a) utzapaw(a)
‘6 Ajaw’ ‘Tutuum’ ‘he planted’

LS
LsH LsD

13-Y’AX-K’IN-ni u-CHOK-wa 13-K’AN[a]-si-ya

oxlajun ya’xk’in(i) uchokow(a) oxlajun k’anasiiy
’13 YaxK’in’ ‘he scattered’ ‘13 k’ayab’’
LS
U
Ls LU

??-li SAK-?? ya-pa?-ma?-??

??-l(i) sak-?? ??
?? ‘white ??’ ??

Figure 3-2. Examples of Glyph Types and Sub-types

 49

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
0

0
48

49

65

69

73

74

75

75

76

76

77

77

78

78

79

79

80

80

81
Gregorian Year

LG CV LS

Figure 3-3. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Types

 50

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0
5
2
2
4
6
1
6
1
6
1
6
0
5
0
5
0
5
0
48
49
65
69
73
74
75
75
76
76
77
77
78
78
79
79
80
80
81
Gregorian Year

D H L Ls LsD LsH LU U

Figure 3-4. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Sub-Types (percentage)

 51

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0
5
2
2
4
6
1
6
1
6
1
6
0
5
0
5
0
5
0
48
49
65
69
73
74
75
75
76
76
77
77
78
78
79
79
80
80
81
Gregorian Year

D H LsD LsH

Figure 3-5. Chronological Distribution: Breakdown by Spelling Types (percentage)

 52

CHUM[mu] -wa -ni -ya -ni

CVCRoot[CV1] -CV2 -CV3 -CV4 -CV5

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
chumuwaniyan(i)?

P=Phase

Figure 3-6. Example of Phases

 53

CHAPTER 4

DISCUSSION

4.1 Word-final Vowels in Maya

4.1.1 Treatment of Word-final Vowels

Mayan hieroglyphic writing uses both logographic and syllabic signs. Unless it is

written with only a logograph, hieroglyphic words usually end with a consonant-vowel

syllable and this type comprises the majority of glyphs at Quiriguá (see also table 3-3, 3-

5). Several cases indicate that it is doubtful that those word-final vowels are really silent.

Rather, it seems to be more likely that those word-final vowels were actually uttered. Hull

(2004b) suggested that Mayan hieroglyphic inscriptions were intended to be uttered aloud

in public. From a native logo-syllabic writing user’s perspective, if a text is designed to

be uttered, the reading of the text should be straightforward without hypothesized

complex spelling rules that require a reader to reconstruct the lengthening of a vowel or

the insertion of a glottal stop within a word after the reader read the word-final syllable,

and to delete a word-final vowel in the last syllable.

Logo-syllabic and syllabic writing systems have very different principles than

alphabetic writing systems. For example, a sound [na] is written with two letters n and a

in English and they are separable. On the other hands, in Maya, a sound [na] is considered

as a syllable na which has the common forms of (T4), (T4), or

 54

(T23). These signs also serve as logographs with the readings naj ‘first’ or

naaj ‘house’. Similarly, in Japanese, [na] can be written with syllables as な(hiragana) or

ナ(katakana). The same sound can be written with variety of Kanji (logographs) such as

/na/ 名 ‘name’, /na/ 菜 ‘greens’, /na/ 魚 ‘fish’, or /na/ 南 ‘south’. Unlike alphabet

writing systems, once the syllable is written, the consonant and vowel are inseparable. In

other words, the syllable na should be pronounced as [na] and cannot be *[n] or *[an]. By

the same token, the syllables [na] な(hiragana) and [li] り(hiragana)13, can make up the

word nali /nali/ [na.li] なり‘form’, ‘shape’, ‘appearance’, which is always read as /nali/

and cannot be pronounced as */nal/, */nli/, or */naal/14. To have such readings, they

would be written as */nal/ [na.l(u)] なる, */nli/ [n.li] んり, */naal/ [na.a.l(u)] なある

or なーる. (ーindicates the latter part of a long vowel, for more detailed orthographic

rules, see Chapter 5). On the other hand, the word /nali/ could be pronounced as [nalii],

[naali] or [naalii]15 when it is used in a certain genres of discourse, such as recitation or

song. Those words are written as [na.li.i] なりい or なりー, [na.a.li] なあり or なー

り, and [na.a.li.i] なありい or なーりー. The vowel can be lengthened in the

transcription by adding extra vowels, such as naaaliiiiii [na.a.a.li.i.i.i.i.i] なあありいい

いい or なーーりーーーー.

13
Katakana for [na] is ナ and for [li] is リ ナリ
, thus katakana transcription for [na.li] is . The
Katakana version is not referred to because hiragana and katakana have the same pronunciation
and their orthographic differences do not affect the discussion here.
14
* means a given word is hypothetical.
 55

This is similar to the English word “love” being written or pronounced as

“looooooove” in some discourse genres such as Internet chat or daily conversation. In

both cases, the basic format of the word is still /nali/ [na.li] なり or “love”. The only

difference is in the prosody of vowel length, which does not affect the literal meaning. If

the vowel length in a given word could change the meaning, for example oba ‘aunt’ vs.

obaa (<obaba) ‘grandmother, elder woman’ vs. oo-oba ‘grandaunt’ vs. oo-obaa ‘great

grandmother’, lengthening does not occur. Glyphic Maya also uses syllables; and if they

follow basic criteria of syllabic writing like Japanese, it also should adhere to the rule that

a word written as CV-CV should be pronounced as CVCV not CVC.

4.1.2 Word-final Vowels in Modern Maya

However, this conflicts with basic syllabic structure of Maya languages.

Generally, Mayan has six basic types of syllable structure: *CVC, *CV1V1C, *CVhC,

*CV’C, *CV1’V1C, *CVSC (S=/s/, / ∫/, or /x/) and the predominant shape is CVC

(England 1992:77, Kaufman and Norman 1984: 84). Consonant clusters are usually

avoided and are only allowed across syllable boundaries (England 1992:78). There were

several phonological changes from Proto-Mayan to Ch’olan. *CVhC and *CVjC merged

to CVhC and *CV’C shifted to CVC, while *CV’V1C retained its form (Kaufman and

Norman 1984: 88). Additionally, a long vowel (V1V1) was reduced to a single vowel (V).

Thus, like proto-Ch’olan, Quiriguá hieroglyphs’ standard root word structures are

assumed to be: *CVC, *CVhC, *CV1’V1C. Does this mean there are no word-final

15
In colloquial form, the word is [nali]
 56

vowels in Mayan texts? That is not the case. Most words are not used as bare root forms

in discourse. Mayan verb stems are often derived and conjugated, and may include

grammatical morphemes such as topic markers, aspect markers, nominalizers and so

forth.

A sample text from Modern Maya (Mopan)

Below is a Mopan Maya animal story from Belize, narrated by Alejandro Chiac

and Wilfrido Coc then transcribed by Lieve Verbeek (Verbeek et.al 2005). I added line

analysis with morpheme breaks and the glottalized sign (’) on b and d, following the

Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG). The word-final syllables are

boldfaced except kristiano and santo, for these two words are Spanish borrowings that

already have word-final vowels in the original thus may not relate to word-ending vowels

in Maya hieroglyphic writings16. These words are also excluded from later analysis.

Where the classifier aj is written as a, the final j is added but it is put in parenthesis and

underlined in order to distinguished from the original text, for example, a(j)-b’ox ixi'im-i

‘the black corn’ (Hofling 2008, personal conversation). The translation next to the

rewritten text is also done by the present author.

16
When Mayan languages modify Spanish loan words ending in vowels, a word-final /h/ is
inserted, thus, santo is actually /santoh/ and kristiano is /kristianoh/ (Hofling 2008, personal
communication). In hieroglyphic writing, a word-final /h/ is usually not recorded and in modern
Maya shows the same treatment for a word-final /h/.
 57

“Bik-i ti yan-aj-i a ixi'im-i”

‘How the corn came into the world’

“B’el in-ka inw-ad’-ä’ tech “I am going to tell you

ja-b’ix ti yan-aj-i a ixi'im-i. how the corn came into existence.

Ka yan-aj-i a y-ok'-ol=kab’-a When the world came into existence

ma' yan ma'ax k'u'-i there was nothing
a yan a-jan-t-ej-e, for you to eat
ka aw-uk'-u. for you to drink.
Te'ej-i tan-oo' uy-ad-ik a kristiano These people were saying
ka yan-ak k'u'-i that they had to have something,
a k-u-jan-t-oo'. to eat.
U-k'aat-aj-oo' ti'-i a dios-o, They asked the god,
u-k'aat-aj-oo' ti'-i a witz-i they asked the mountain

tub’a u-tal-el, where it arrives,

tub’a u-lik'-il k'u'-i where the thing arises

a ku jan-t-oo', the thing to eat

a ixi'im-i. (which is) the corn

Te'-i uy-ad’-aj a Chaak-a: There, the rain god Chaak said:

“Tan-e'ex a k'aat-ik a-jan-al, aw-uk'-ul,” “You all are asking me your food, your drink,”

—k-u-t'an. — he said.

“Tan ti-k'aat-il ti'-i ka ti-jan-t-e “We are asking for things to eat (so that)

ma' ti-jan-t-ik ti-baj-il we do not eat ourselves

tik-i jun-al.” (nor) dried alone.”

“Tan ti-k'aat-ik “We are asking

kuch-i a ixi'im-i, perhaps for the corn.

 58

le'ek a walak u-jan-t-ab’-äl-ä.” That is what is eaten.”

— they answered17.
“Pwes ki, “Well, OK,
ka' aw-il-e'ex.” look! You all.”
—k-u-t'an. — he said.
“B’el in-k-in-b’et-e(j). “I am going to make it.
Ka' w-il-e'ex” Look! You all.”
—k-u-t'an a Chaak-a. —the Chaak said

U-tz'aj a lemlem-e. Chaak handed over the lightning

Tan-il-ik u-jatz. that always beats (things) down.
Pa'ax-i a tun-ich-i, The rock broke to pieces,
no=xi ja-b’ix jun-p'eel naj. It was very large like a house.
Jeb’-i a tun-ich-i. That rock opened.

Uy-il-aj a Chaak-a The Chaak saw that

i uy-il-aj-il-ik u-mos-o and he also saw his helpers

to tan-oo' uy-ok-ol aj-say the leaf-cutter (Zompopo) ants are still entering

y-alam a tun-ich-i. beneath the rock.

Kaj-oo' u-puut-e a ixi'im aj-say The leaf-cutter ants started to bring the corn

y-alam a tun-ich-i. (from) beneath the rock.

Tan-oo' u-jok'-s-ik. They are taking it out.

Tan-oo' u-jok'-s-ik a ixi'im-i. They are taking the corn out.

Uy-il-aj a Chaak-a The Chaak saw

ti yan a ixi'im that there was the corn

y-alam a tun-ich-i. beneath that rock.

17
There is no corresponding Mopan text.

B’a-lo' ka uy-eel-t-aj a Chaak-a
ti yan a ixi'im
y-alam a tunich-i.
Pa'ax-i a tunich-i.
Jiin-i a ixi'im-i.
Te'-ej-i ok-oo'
u-mol-oo'.
U-mol-aj-oo' a kich'pan-a,
a ma'=chuw-en-i,
le'ek tun a(j)-säk ixi'im-i.
U-mol-aj-oo'-il-ik
a chen kän k'aak-'aj-ij-i,
leek tun a(j)-kän ixi'im-i.
U-ka'=mol-aj-oo'-il-ik
a k'äs chäk-ä u-men k'aak'-a,
le'ek a(j)-chäk ixi'im-i.
U-ka'=mol-aj-oo'
a(j)-chuw-en ti ki'-i,
le'ek tun a(j)-b’ox ixi'im-i.
Yaab’ u-jok-s-aj-oo' a santo ixi'im-i,
chen et-el uy-an-il aj-say
y men-täk
aj-say a-leeb-e
tzaj u-b’en-s-ik uy-ixi'im
porke le'ek u-käx-t-aj-oo'.
Wa kuch-i ma' y-ok'-l-al-oo' aj-say-a,
ma' kuch-i walak ti-jan-t-ik a ixi'im
a-leeb’-e,
porke uch-i ma' yan a ixi'im-i.
59
It is thus, when the Chaak knew
that there was the corn
beneath the rock
the rock broke to pieces
the corn scattered
There were the stalks,
they gathered them.
They gathered the good ones,
the ones that were not the burned.
That is the white corn.
They gathered them
the only yellow roasted ones
that is the yellow corn of today.
They again gathered them too
the reddish one because of the fire
that is the red corn.
They also gathered them
the completely burnt ones.
that is the black corn of today.
They took out a lot of holy corn,
only with the authority of the leaf-cutter ants.
And therefore,
the leaf-cutter ant now
need to carry their corn
because they found it
or if it were not for the leaf-cutter ants,
we would not eat the corn now,
because a long time ago, there was no corn.
 60

B’a-lo' ti yan-aj-i a ixi'im-i.” In that way, the corn came into existence.”

18
In the example above, there are 306 words in which 206 words (67.3 % of total)

end with a vowel and 100 words (32.7% of total) end with a consonant (Table 4-1). The

transcriber of the story tends to write the ergative person markers such as u- ‘he/she/it’ or

ti- ‘we’ as a separate word, where it should be attached to the following words: u yilaj

instead of uyilaj (uy-il-aj) ‘he saw’ or ti jantik instead of tijantik (ti-jan-t-ik) ‘we eat’.

Thus they are excluded from the count.

Among those 206 vowel-final words, 117 word-final vowels (56.8 % of all vowel-

endings) are parts of roots. In other words, for those words, the vowel-endings are

expected, such as, a preposition ti ‘of, on, to’. However, kristiano ‘people’ and santo

‘holy are Spanish borrowing words therefore are excluded from the count. A word that

ends with a glottalized vowel such as ma’ ‘no (negative)’ is technically CVC (consonant

(=glottal stop) ending). However, a word-final glottal stop is usually not recorded in

Mayan hieroglyphic writing thus a word with CV’ structure can be written with one CV

syllable19. In glyphic writing, word-final weak consonants, such as sonorants /l, m, n/ or

glottals /h, ’/, can be “underspelled” (Justeson 1989, Kettunen and Helmke 2005: 57-58).

Therefore, when a word ends with a weak consonant, orthographically a given word

18
Not including the title ‘B’iki ti yanaji a ixi'imi’.
19
A glottal stop can be indicated by a V sign. For example, a word mo’ ‘macaw’ is oftern spelled
as mo.o. This orthographic vowel-doubling indicates the rearticulated vowel and possibly the
glottal stop (Lacadena and Wichmann 2004: 112).
 61

might end with a vowel.

On the other hand, word-final vowels in 89 words (43.2 % of all vowel-endings)

are added to the roots and are functioning as grammatical morphemes such as –i, a

completive suffix for intransitive verbs (e.g. p’aax-i ‘broke’, jiin-i ‘fell down, scattered’),

-oo’, a third person plural absolutive suffix –oo’ (e.g. u-mol-aj-oo’ ‘he picked/gathered

them up’), locative or topicalizing deictics often suffix to a word preceded by the

determiner a (e.g. a tunich-i ‘the mountatin’, a k’äs chäkä ‘the reddish one’, or a

kich’pan-a ‘the pretty one’, aleebe (aleeb’e) ‘today’ which is morphologically a-leeb’-e:

a root adverb leeb’ ‘now, today’, a particle a- ‘the’, and ‘topicalizing deictic marker’ –e).

Among those 89 vowel-endings, 42 cases (47.2 % of word-final vowels

functioning as grammatical morphemes) repeat the vowel in the preceding syllable; while

the remaining 47 cases (52.8 % of word-final vowels functioning as grammatical

morphemes) do not, for example, chuwen-i, te’ej-i, or kuch-i. In the first example, the

whole phrase is a ma’ chuweni ‘not the burnt one’, in which -a is the determiner ‘the’ and

ma’ is negative requiring the –i negative suffix. Thus chuweni consists of a root transitive

verb chuw ‘to burn’, an adjectiviser -en (>chuw-en ‘burnt’), and a negative circumfix –i

from ma’… i ‘not’. For both second and third cases, the original form of te’eji is probably

te’iji ‘there’ (-ij is a locative suffix, Hofling 2008, personal conversation) and the full

form of kuchi is kuchij ‘perhaps, maybe, before’, respectively. Te’ij is also written as teiji

(te-ij-i) or te’i (te’-i), and kuchij is often written as kuchi (kuch-i). Other examples of

word-ending vowels disagreeing with the preceding vowels include those with other

grammatical morphemes such as absolutive pronouns and completive status markers.

Nouns are the most used word class in the text; and verbs follow next. This agrees
 62

with the results from Quiriguá glyphic corpus in Chapter 3. The table below shows the

number and ratio of word-final vowels from the Mopan Maya story.

Since the focus here is on nouns and verbs, all other parts of speech, such as

adjectives, adverbs, particles or conjunctions, are included in one category (other). For

nouns, i is the most frequent ending and a is the second common word-final vowel. i is

common because ixi’im(-i) and tun-ich(-i) are frequently used words in text is, but i is not

only an echo-vowel, it is actually functioning as a topic marker. i also functions as a focus

marker such as in k’u’-i ‘it is something’. For verbs, o is the most frequent word-final

vowel but this is because the subject is often “they,” which requires the third-person

plural marker -oo’ at the end of the word. If there is no -oo’ suffix, verbs usually take

completive marker -aj which might have yielded to a ending in glyphic Maya text due to

a weak consonant h. a is the most common in the other parts of speech and this is mostly

due to the determiners a (38 cases); and that makes -a the most frequent ending.

Compare the word-final vowel ratios of the Mopan Maya story to that of Quiriguá

text (Table 3-10), several similarities can be found despite the differences in the precise

breakdown for the ratio of the word-final vowels. In the Mopan Maya story, the total ratio

shows that the a ending is again the most frequent in the text. i is the second most used

ending and the o ending is third. e endings are less frequent and u is the least common

ending. This is almost the same result as QRG corpus shown in Table 4-3. The only

difference is in the least used vowels: u is least used in the Mopan Maya story; and e is

least used in QRG corpus.

The Mopan Maya story suggests that the word-ending vowels are not rare in

Mayan texts and that the existence of those vowels can be linguistically explained. So,
 63

what about Glyphic Maya and proto-Ch’olan along with related languages Ch’orti’ and

Ch’oltí? Do they have vowel endings, which can be explained linguistically?

A sample text from Modern Maya (Ch’orti’)

Below is an example of a modern-Ch’orti’ text (from Martínez1996: 20, for

Spanish translation (original) and English translation (by author with the help of Juan
20
Luis Rodriguez and Dr. Andrew Hofling), see footnote ):

20
EL DILUBIO: Cuentan que una vez estuvo lloviendo demasiado y aquella lluvia cayó por tres
días seguidos. //De los tres días seguidos de lluvia crecieron las correntadas en todas las
quebradas y formó un río grande que desemboca en Honduras y que cruza Jocotán. // Cuando
comenzó a bajar ese río, muchos árboles, entre ellos pinos, fueron jalados al lugar que se le
denomina "vedo" donde cruzan los guarerucheños. //Los vecinos se bajaron al río a rajar esa
leña. Ahí estaban cuando vieron que el río traía a un venado, y uno de ellos, se tiró al río;
nadando alcanzó al venado y al llegar lo agarró de las dos orejas, intentó hundirlo y no pudo. Se
montó y no lo hundió. //Mostrando su necedad en matarlo, llegaron a una corriente muy fuerte, y
los compañeros que estaban fuera, empezaron a gritarle y dijeron ‘déjalo, no vas a lograr sacarlo’
y él ya estaba encantado, porque ese venado no era realmente venado, sino que era sierpe. // De
repente les hizo seña con la mano diciendo a sus compañeros ‘ váyanse ustedes’ y se zambulleron
con el venado para siempre. //La historia dice que este hombre fue llevado para guardián de
pescados, en ese lugar. El nombre de esa persona, era don "Tanís" y hoy día, los pescadores
rezan a don Tanís antes de entrar a pescar. (From Martínez 1996: 40) [THE DILUBIO: They say
that once it was raining too much and that rain fell for three days in a row. //The three
consecutive days of rain increased the currents in all the creeks and formed a big river that flows
into Honduras and crosses Jocotán. //When the river began to lower, many trees, including pines,
were carried to the place that is called "vedo" where the Guarerucheños cross. //The neighbors
came down to the river to cut that firewood. There they were when they saw that the river
brought a deer, and one of them jumped into the river; swam and reached the deer and upon
arriving grabbed its two ears, tried to drown it but he could not. He got on its back but it did not
sink. //Showing his stubbornness in trying to kill it, they came to a very strong current, and the
companions who were outside, began to shout and said ‘Leave it, you cannot take it out of the
water’ but he was already bewitched because that deer was not really a deer, but was a serpent.
//Suddenly, he made a gesture with his hand telling his companions, 'Go away, you all’ and he
submerged with the deer forever. //The story says that this man was taken to the guardian of fish
in that place. The name of that person, was "Don Tanís" and today, the fishermen pray to Don.
Tanís before going fishing. ]
 64

E JAJA’R

Ak’ajna ke’ ayan tanyair kay k’axi e jaja’r. u che ke’ uxmojy ajk’in

kay k’axi. Konda tz’akta uxmojy ajk’in i ma’chi anumuy nen inb’ijk, tama

e yaja’ ch’i’ e sya’n ja’ tama tuno’r e syan kojnob’ i tamar sib’i e xukur

xe’ alok’oy Hondura water tama kachinam.

Kondixto kay tz’u’pa e nuxi’ xukur yaja’ me’yra syan tajte’

ub’ejru tari tama inte’ b’ádu pakrekok tya’ anumuyob’ e ajwa’reruchob’

a’xyob’ inxejr ja’. Ja’xto e ajwa’reruchob’ ekmayob’ k’axyob’ tu’ti’

xukur, kay uwitrwob’ e syan tajte’. Yixto e’yni turob’ konda chekta tari

inte’ nuxi’ masa’ to’r e xukur i lokoy inte’ upya’rob’ uyari ub’a taja’ ixin

ta nujxer; b’an k’otoy utajwi e nuxi’ masa’.

Che ke’ k’otoy, uwajpi tama cha’terti’ uchikin; umuki ani maku’ e

ja’ i ma’chi muktz’a; t’ab’ay turan tau pat i ma’chi muktz’a. Tya’ war

ani uturb’a ub’a twa’ uchamse, k’otoyob’ tama e ajner i jaxto e’mojrob’

xe’ turob’ najtir’ kay uyarwob’ i chenob’ ayi: -aktan mix alok’senik, i e

winik majyi’x u’t umen e masa’, tamar ke’ e masa’ yaja’ maja’x ani masa’

che ke’ chij chan ani. Uche uk’ab’ che: - kiki’k no’x, i muktz’a taka e

masa’ i ma’chi’x lok’oy.

Ak’ajna k’e’ k’echb’ir i jax ketpa ajkojkchay tama inte’ nuxi’

araw. Uk’ab’a’ ani e winik, nuxi’ Tanis i ja’x apejkna kone’r umen e

ajkoromob’ ke’ war ch’enob’ ke’ ja’x aktana ajkojk tama e chay.
 65

The story contains 226 words and 132 words (58.4 %) end with either vowel-

endings (boldface, 92 words [69.7 %]) or vowel-glottal stop endings (single underline, 40

words [30.3 %]). As the example above shows, modern Ch’orti’ texts often contain vowel

endings. However, for reconstructed Glyphic Maya, there are few examples of accepted

vowel endings despite the fact that Glyphic Maya often ends with syllables that have

vowel endings and that reconstructed proto-Ch’olan has vowel endings.

4.1.3 Verbs

There are several types of verbs that end in vowels in Ch’orti’, Cholti, and Proto-

Ch’olan. In general, Mayan languages have four main verb classes: Intransitive;

Positional; Inchoative and Transitive. Transitive verbs have four main voices: Active;

Passive; Mediopassive (middle); and Antipassive. Every Ch’olan verb must have a status

marker including third person –ø[zero] markers. Except in the imperative mood and with

non-finite verbs, every verb must have at least one person marker. Transitive verbs must

have two person markers. Intransitive verbs have a single person marker. Derived

intransitive verbs may require thematic suffixes (Kaufman and Norman 1984: 95).

According to Kaufman and Norman (1984: 95), verb structure goes as follows:

Incorporated
Aspect Lexical Thematic Status
- Ergative - Modifier - - - - Absolutive
Prefix Stem Suffix Marker
(Adverbial)
 66

Among Ch’orti’, Ch’oltí, and Proto-Ch’olan, several status markers and thematic

suffixes consist only of vowels. The table below is the brief summary of those suffixes

with comparison to that of reconstructed for glyphic Maya (Table 4-4).

Only a few differences can be found among Ch’orti’, Ch’oltí, and Proto-Ch’olan,

while glyphic Maya has forms very different from the above three languages. Indeed, root

intransitive completive and positional completive and incompletive are the only examples

showing the same or very similar matches. Moreover, none of reconstructed glyphic

Maya except the root intransitive completive has a vowel ending, despite the fact that

Ch’orti’, Ch’oltí, and Proto-Ch’olan verbs end with vowels in the following categories:

root transitive completive, incompletive, and imperative; derived transitive completive;

inchoative competive (not all of them); root intransitive completive (y is a semivowel),

and incompletive (in Ch’orti’); and thematic suffixes with derived intransitive completive

(reconstructed only for Eastern Ch’olan and Proto-Eastern Ch’olan). This seems very odd

because if, as is now assumed, Glyphic Maya reflects Ancient Mayan grammar and

vocabulary at the time it was spoken, most grammatical morphemes should correspond to

reconstructed ancient Maya, especially proto-Ch’olan or Yukatekan. If such discrepancies

are due to historical change, there should be some orthographic evidence showing such

changes, such as the collapse of the j and h distinction recorded in the inscriptions (Grube

2004). If differences are because of orthographic conventions, there should be clear

linguistic explanations why ancient Maya scribes chose to write in the way they did.

It seems that epigraphers strictly follow the assumption that almost all Maya

words end with consonant and written word-final vowels are unpronounced (Coe 2001:

21; Kettunen 2000, personal communication; Kettunen and Helmke 2005: 19,
 67

Montgomery 2002b: 49). The over-application of disharmonic spelling rules also ends up

with grammatical morphemes that are found in neither modern Mayan languages nor

historically reconstructed languages, such as the positional suffix -waan (Kettunen and

Helmke 2005: 65) or the intransitive incompletive suffix or temporal deictic21 -iiy (Stuart

2006, Wald 2004).

According to Stuart (2006: 66), derived transitives always take the ergative

pronoun prefix and are always of the following form:

ERG-DERIVED TRANSITIVE STEM-ij-(iiy)-ABS

(1) ya-la-ji(=IJ)-ya tz’u-nu ti ITZAMNAAJ

yalijiiy tz’unun ti Izamnaaj
(u)y-al-ij-iiy-ø tz’unun ti Itzamnaaj
3sE-say-DTS-COMP-3sB hummingbird PREP Itzamnaaj
‘the hummingbird said it to Itzamnaaj’

What is odd here is that the ji sign is claimed to serve as a morphosyllable IJ in

order to prevent disharmonically spelled la-ji becoming laaj. On the contrary,

“disharmonically spelled” IJ-ya becomes ij-iiy where last syllable ya signals long vowel

before consonant y and the word-final vowel a as well as the word-final vowel in the root

AL(a) disappear from the script. However, in the latter case, the ji sign serves as a

syllable. Below is another example of applying the reading ji as the morphosyllable IJ

(Stuart 2006: 66).

21
I agree with the existence of temporal deictics and corresponding patterns between -ihi in
colonial Maya documents and -ji-ya glyphic compounds. However, I disagree with the reading
 68

(2) yi-ILA-ji(=IJ)
yilaij
(u)y-ila-ij-ø
3sE-see/witness-DTS-3sB
‘he witnesses it’

The logograph ILA is usually read as IL but here it read as ila and since ji is

claimed to serve as morphosyllable IJ in other examples, yi-ILA-ji does not become the

common form of the IL glyph often spelled as yi-IL-la-ja yilaj ‘it was witnessed’ or yi-

IL-ji yilij ‘he witnessed’ (Stuart 2006: 66).

For both cases, epigraphers who adopt the morphosyllable hypothesis read the ji

sign as a syllable ji, then when it does not fit their interpretation, they change the reading

of ji sign from ji /ji/ to IJ /ij/.

Another interpretation by Kettunen and Helmke (2005: 67) differentiates non-

CVC transitives from CVC (root) transitives. According to them non-CVC transitives

take the forms of:

Active voice: ERG-Verb-V-ABS

(3) yi-IL-a
yila
y-il-a-ø
3sE-see-ActTS-3sB
‘he/she saw [it]’

Compare this to Kaufman and Norman’s analysis of the Ch’oltí derived transitive

(Kaufman and Norman 1984: 99).

based on disharmonic spelling rules or morphosyllable hypothesis. Rather, I think the reading of
this glyph compound should be reconsidered but I will not discuss this issue in this paper.
 69

(4) Inuilla
inw-ill-a-ø
1sE-see-CDTS-3sA
‘I saw it’

The verb ill ‘to see’ takes the first person ergative pronoun inw-, but if it is replaced by 3rd

person ergative pronoun u(y)-, its form becomes y-ill-a and that can be easily spelled as

yi-IL-la yilla or yi-IL-a yila. Regardless whether the interpretation of Kettunen and

Helmke (2005) or of Kaufman and Norman (1984) is right, the important fact is that the

word-final vowel is pronounced and has a grammatical function.

In fact, linguists Kaufman and Justeson, for example, suggest that many word-

final orthographic vowels in verbs are in fact pronounced, in particular, many of those

that directly follow a verb-stem, except those containing <a> of the suffixes spelled by

<wa>, <ja>, and <ya>, which are unpronounced (Kaufman 2007). For the wa suffix,

Kaufman (2007) notes that the proto-Mayan (or proto-Western Mayan) plain status

marker for root transitives was *-a(h/w) ~ *-o(h/w) ~ *-u(h/w); and pre-proto-Ch’olan

generalized /w/ and overrode vowel harmony on the suffix resulting in *-aw, as is seen in

present-day Ch’ol (Kaufman 2007: 63). For the ja suffix, final a might have signaled an

echo-vowel or silent (voiceless) vowel that appears after pronouncing the /j/ sound.

Kaufman also argues that in order to look carefully into the spelling rules, verbs should

not be the focus because the linguistic interpretation of epigraphic Mayan verb

morphology is still under the debate thus “it would be a mistake to take the chance of

bringing possibly spurious data into the initial stages of analysis of the conventions for

choosing unpronounced vowels that may in fact include a substantial number of

 70

pronounced vowels (Kaufman 2007: 4).” Those pronounced vowels in verbs provide

additional support for the word-final vowels in hieroglyphic Maya.

4.1.4. Nouns

It has been thought that unlike verbs, nouns rarely end with vowels and that is

why the investigations on the spelling rules in Mayan hieroglyphic writing are focusing

on nouns (Kaufman 2007). However, even though noun roots rarely end with vowels,

they often end with weak consonants, such as /l/ in -Vl suffixes, which can be

underspelled (Kettunen and Helmke 2005: 57-58). Below is a brief description of the

characteristics of glyphic Maya nouns.

According to Stuart et al. (2006: 34), the noun has two states with different

inflections: an absolutive (unpossessed) type and a possessed type. Absolutive nouns are

not inflected for possession and stand alone, while possessed nouns are attributable to

some entity outside of themselves. According to Stuart (2006:35), a body part term never

takes a –il or –Vl suffix marking possessed status:

Absolute: K’AB’ Possessed: u-K’AB’

k’ab’ u-k’ab’
hand 3SG.A-hand
‘it is a hand’ ‘it is his hand’

Other nouns take -Vl suffix when it is possessed (Stuart 2006: 35):

Absolute: K’UH Possessed: u-K’UH-li

K’uh u-k’uh-ul
god/holy thing 3SG.A-god/holy thing-POSS.
‘a god, a holy thing’ ‘it is his god, his holy thing’
 71

Stuart (2006:35) also noted that another class of nouns takes a suffix in its

absolute state but is unmarked (-ø) when possessed. However, examples are limited and

may need more careful examination:

Absolute: tu-pa-ja Possessed: u-tu-pa

tup-aj u-tup-ø
earring-ABS. 3SG.A-earring-POSS.
‘it is an earring’ ‘it is his earring’

A verb or verb phrase can be derived as a noun with a -Vl suffix. On certain verb

roots, the -il ending is used to derive nominal forms from them (Stuart 2006: 48):

(3) a. U-B’AAH-hi TI-CH’AB’-li

u-b’aah ti-ch’ab’-il
3SG.A-oneself PREP-do penance-DRN.
his person in (the act of ) penance/sacrifice

According to Stuart (2006: 48), the –il ending also derives abstract nouns from

concrete nouns:

Concrete: AJAW Abstract: AJAW-li

ajaw ajaw-il
lord lord-DN.
‘lord’ ‘lordship’

Yet, noun possession and the role of the -Vl suffix are a bit more complicated.

Although like other -Vl endings, the ending -el derives nouns, Stuart (2006: 48-50)

distinguishes -el from other -Vl (mostly taking the -il form) endings because the -el suffix,

at least in the inscriptions, has its own slightly different rules and carries subtle

information not offered by -il or the other -Vl endings. According to Stuart (2006: 48),

those nouns derived by the -el suffix tend to express “a certain direct and concrete

attribution of the root to another entity that need not be expressed (Stuart 2006: 48).” An
 72

example of an inalienable noun is the noun ch’ich-el ‘blood’ derived from a nominal root

ch’ich’ ‘”blood” in the abstract, unattributable sense’(Stuart 2006: 48). Stuart explains

this addition of the -el as producing “a more exact reference, understandable as ‘one’s

blood (that is, of one’s body)’ (Stuart 2006: 49).”-el appears on body part terms to refer to

“substances” of the body (inalienable possessions) in contrast to limbs, areas, or discrete

parts.

The -ib’ or -Vb’ endings derive instrumental nouns from verb roots or from other

nouns (Stuart 2006: 50, e.g. a, b). As the example c below shows, possessed instrumental

nouns can take the –il suffix (Stuart 2006: 50).

(4) a. CHUM[mu]-b’i b. yu-k’i-b’i

chumub’i yuk’ib’(i)
chum-ub’ (u)y-uk’-ib’
seat-INSTN 3SG.A-drink-INSTN
‘a seat’ ‘his drinking cup’

c. u-WAY-b’i-li
uway(i)b’i(li)
u-way-ib’-il
3SG.A-sleep/transform-DRN-POSS
‘it is his sleeping/transforming place’

However, Kaufman and Norman (1984:99) analyze this construction as having one suffix

–b’il, a perfect passive participle form of root transitives in Ch’oltí, rather than two

different suffixes.

Agentive nouns describe a person’s occupation or some other intrinsic quality of

the individual (Stuart 2006: 50). It is always as a part of “titles” within a personal name

phrase (Stuart 2006: 50). According to Stuart (2006: 50), agentive nouns are created by

the prefix aj- (e.g. a, b) and by the suffix –oom (e.g. c, d).
 73

(5) a. AJ-LAKAM HA’ b. AJ-3-B’AAK-ki

Aj-Lakamha’ Aj ux-b’aak(i)
Aj-Lakam=ha’ Aj ux-b’aak
AGN-great=water AGN 3-prisoner
‘He of Lakamba’(Palenque?[toponym]) ‘he of three prisoners’

c. ka-yo-ma d. ch’a-jo-ma
kayoom ch’ajoom
kay-oom ch’aj-oom
fish-AGN incense22-AGN
‘he is a fisherman’ ‘he is one who casts incense?’

First suggested by Kaufman (Kaufman 2008, personal communication; Hofling

2008, personal communication), Stuart (2006: 51) notes that the –oom ending is also

suffixed to intransitive verbs and served as a future aspect marker. His explanation is that

both describe persons or activities that are anticipatory. For example a fisherman always

will be engaged in the same activity thus “fisherman=he will fish” (Stuart 2006: 51-52).

Many nouns end with or can take -Vl suffixes. Kaufman paid serious attention to

that and derived the “-V:l hypothesis” in order to predict what unpronounced vowels

would be added at the ends of Epigraphic Mayan (EpM) words to spell out of word-final

consonants. His hypothetical rule is that “when you have to spell an unpronounced vowel

at the end of a noun or adjective, spell the vowel that would occur in the {-V:l} suffix that

can be added to the noun or adjective (Kaufman 2007: 5).” In other words, CV1-CV2

stands for /CVC/ in relation to a CV1-CV2-lV2 standing for /CV1C-V2:l/ where V2 is the

same in every pair (Kaufman 2007: 5-6). For example, /hu’n/ ‘paper’ is spelled as hu-na

because of its -V:l form /hu’n-a:l/ which is also spelled as hu-na-la. By the same token,
 74

/taj/ ‘pine’ is spelled as ta-ja due to its -V:l form /taj-a:l/, which is also spelled as ta-ja-la

(for complete examples, see Kaufman 2007)23. Although his hypothesis still leaves

questions about the last vowel of lV2 in CV1-CV2-lV2 /CV1C-V2:l/ spelling, his claim

that “the unpronounced vowels tell us NOTHING about the vowel nucleus of the syllable

preceding the word-final consonant (Kaufman 2007: 42),” should be taken seriously. As a

matter of fact, Kaufman pointed out that Lacadena and Wichmann’s hypothesis seems to

work well because it is partly based on Wichmann’s revision of Kaufman’s

reconstruction of the proto-Mayan syllable nuclei, which contains a variety of mistakes,

including a failure to properly analyze the grammatical structure of words in the various

descendant languages (Kaufman 2007: 48). With inaccurate reconstruction, the data and

the hypothesis Lacadena and Wichmann (2004) presented may not be trustworthy. Even

though Kaufman’s theory cannot explain all vowels in ancient Mayan texts, his

suggestion is still worth considering because his hypothesis is at least supporting a

reconstruction that has no relation to vowel complexity of preceding syllable nuclei. It is

also important to note that within Kaufman’s data, 10% of the cases of unpronounced

vowels were actually pronounced in the corresponding -Vl suffixes (Kaufman 2007).

22
According to Kaufman and Norman’s reconstruction (1984: 119) has no entry for *ch’aj but
has an entry of *ch’äj ‘ground parched corn’.
23
In addition to this basic rule, Kaufman also noted the following rubrics:“ 1) cases where the -
Vl rule is followed; data from known Mayan languages support the vowel spelled in EpM; 2)
cases where there is more than one shape in the known Mayan languages, but EpM agrees with
greater Tzeltalan; 3)-Vl in known Mayan languages is discrepant or missing, but other suffixes
begin with the vowel spelled in EpM; 4) the EpM data do not agree with the data from known
Mayan languages; 5) the known languages do not have any suffixes on the corresponding words,
so the hypothesis cannot be tested; 6) late texts written by Yukatekan scribes (at least partly) in
Yukatekan, seem to show a preference for synharmonic spellings (Kaufman 2007: 41).”
 75

Perhaps there might be more than 10% of pronounced vowels if those word-final vowels

signal the following -Vl suffixes, because in order to get the final l, the last vowel should

be uttered. In other words, correspondences between “unpronounced” vowels and vowels

in -Vl suffixes might actually indicate that those “unpronounced” vowels signal

underspelled word-final -l.

Bricker (1989) pointed out that consonant deletion, along with vowel insertion

(the synharmonic rule) and consonant insertion (CVC-VC word spelled as CVC-CVC,

discussed in the later section), is a common convention in the post-Conquest Yucatecan

manuscripts and those are probably features of the Precolumbian hieroglyphic scripts as

well. For example, the nominal phrase, u-mut-il ‘his bird, omen’ is spelled u muti on the

second page of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chan Kan (Bricker 1989: 45). In this

example, a word-final consonant l is not written even though it is possible using Latin

alphabet. Bricker (1989: 45) suggested that umutil should be the reading for the spelling

u.mu:ti (T1.19:59, Figure 4-1), which is often read as umut ‘his bird, omen’.

Although a disharmonic rule that derives u-muut from u-mu-ti spelling was not

proposed when Bricker (1989) made this suggestion, I think her interpretation is more

plausible than the reading based on a disharmonic rule. This also suggests that

correspondences between “unpronounced” vowels and vowels in -Vl suffixes, which

Kaufman (2007) hypothesizes as the “-V:l rule”, is actually indicating the deletion of a

word-final l from the spelling.

 76

4.1.5 Enclitic and Demonstrative Pronouns

According to Kaufman and Norman’s reconstruction (1984: 139), proto-Ch’olan

has two deictic enclitics: the *-i ‘enclitic, relatively near to speaker’; and the *-e ‘enclitic,

relatively far from speaker’. Similarly, in Yukatek, Tozzer also noted that the

demonstratives are expressed by the suffixes -a ‘this one here’, -o ‘that one there’, and a

topic marker -e ‘that one at a distance’; and they are always found in connection with the

prefix lē, itself a demonstrative or a sort of definite article (Tozzer 1921: 50; Hofling

2008, personal communication):

(6) a. lē winik-a ‘this man here’

b. lē winik-o ‘that man there, pointing to the place’
c. lē winik-e ‘that man at an distance’

Hanks conducted much more intensive studies on Yukatek Mayan speakers’

practices on making references (Hanks 1990). He pointed out that speakers determine

their relationship and distance to the listener by using different enclitics, which are

hierarchically determined (Hanks 1990). For example, way e’, té’el a’ ‘here’ and té’el o’

and tol o’ ‘there, out there’ refer to different zones (Hanks 1990: 188-189). Also there are

nominal deictics as in lel a’ for reference to objects visually or tactually available or new

in the discourse and lel o’ for reference to objects visible or simply known by both

interactants from background knowledge or prior discourse (Hanks 1990: 21). There are 6

kinds of terminal deictics (a’, o’, b’e’, i’, e’, and Ø) each of them refer to the relative

placement of the forms’ referents in relation to discourse participants (Hanks 1990: 17-

19; Hofling 2008, personal communication).

 77

(7) Initial Deictic: hé’e(l)

(ostensive evidential adverb: a-c; deictic modal auxiliary: d)
a. hé’el a’ ‘ here it is (Tactual Presentative)’
b. hé’el o’ ‘ tere it is (Visual Directive)’
c. hé’e b’e’ ‘ there it is (Auditory Directive)’
d. hé’el e’ ‘ indeed, for sure’(Topic Marker)

Proto-Ch’olan also has several demonstratives including * ha’-in ‘this, that’; *ila

(-i) ‘this’; *wa’(i) ‘ here’; *ya’(i) ‘there, yonder’; *wal ‘ a) now, today; b) progressive

aspect marker’(Kaufman and Norman 1984: 139). Alone or suffixed to nouns, many

words would end with vowels. In Glyphic Maya, a demonstrative pronoun ha’-i (Figure

4-1) ‘this, that, that one’ is widely accepted (Montgomery 2002b: 145), but not many of

other demonstratives are attested.

In addition to the above, Mora-Marín suggested that word-final Ca syllabogram

might indicate the presence of a phrase-final ‘proximal enclitic’ -a(’) (Mora-Marín 2006:

90), or perhaps it also indicates an applicative suffix -ä which transitivizes active verbal

nouns and which marks completive status as well(Mora-Marín 2006: 68). Hofling (1989:

53) also suggested the possible existence of -e as ‘topicalizing deictic marker’ in the

Dresden Codex and that the final vowel was pronounced. However, their suggestions do

not seem to be generally accepted. In the earlier examples of Mopan Maya and Ch’orti’

stories show word-final vowels are everywhere. However, in glyphic Mayan texts, they

seem not to appear. The question is whether final vowels were ignored and not written in

the hieroglyphic texts or if scholars just disregard their existence when they attempt to

transcribe and translate the ancient Mayan texts. If there are topic markers, thematic

suffixes, and other grammatical morphemes in ancient Mayan texts, vowel endings

should appear frequently. The high frequency of syllabic endings may actually signal such
 78

vowel endings.

4.2. Orthographic Rules for Verb Conjugation Systems in Japanese

Determination of phonemes is affected by various factors including psychological

or intuitional and physical perception. In other words, phonological and phonemic

analyses sometimes do not fit the orthographic rules or native speakers’ intuition of a

given language. Japanese verb conjugation systems provide good examples of how stems

and affixes are transcribed by means of logographs and CV syllables while purely

linguistic grammatical analysis suggests different patterns and rules. Since both Japanese

and Maya use similar writing systems, a grammatical analysis of Japanese verb

conjugation systems accounting for orthography might be useful to understand Mayan

syllabic writing systems and its conjugation systems.

Japanese verbs are agglutinative in which the root is accompanied by various

suffixes (Rogers 2005, Miura 1976, Tanabe 1986). Table 4-5 shows a grammatical

analysis on a Japanese verb root and stems.

According to Rogers’s analysis, a verb can end in a consonant:

(8) aruku
aruk-u
step/walk-PRESENT
VCVC-V

For past and participal forms, the root seems to end in a vowel:

(9) aruita
arui-ta
step/walk-PAST
VCVV-CV
 79

but this is due to the euphonic change (k > i) and underlying form is still considered

VCVC. However, orthographically, Japanese verb conjugation forms can be analyzed

differently (Table 4-6). In this way, a verb is perceived as VCV and a word-final

consonant is grouped with a following suffix.

Another example is waraw ‘to laugh’ (Table 4-7). Since in modern Japanese,

there is no difference between [we] and [e], [wi] and [i], and [wu] and [u], word-final [w]

is confused with [u]. However, like the above case aruk ‘to walk’, waraw ‘to laugh’ has

different orthographic forms (Table 4-8).

As the cases above show, when Japanese verbs are conjugated, generally they take

the form of Kanji-Kana (LOGOGRAPH-syllable). A syllable that immediately follows a

logograph usually consists of a word-final consonant of the root and a vowel functioning

as a grammatical morpheme.

Bricker (1989: 41) pointed out that in the Book of Chilam balam of Chumayel,

doubled consonants (consonant insertion) are used to convert vowel suffixes into CV

syllables. For example, “a word like chac-e which consists of a CVC root and an enclitic

vowel, could have been written syllabically as cha ce or logosyllabically as chac ce

(Bricker 1989: 41).” According to Bricker (1989: 41), the latter convention is more

frequent, such as mun ni (p12), yoc ce (p35), u booc ce and muyal le (p36), yol li (p39),

yit te and lac ci (p41), tzimen ne (p65), tun ne (p66), u buc ce and u boc ce (p70), muc ce

(p71), tan ni (p88), cah hi (p90), and yan ni (p96). Those examples show that colonial

Maya scribes who also acknowledged to Pre-columbian hieroglyphic writing employed

both logographic and syllabic principles of writing and adpted them to the Latin alphabet

writing. Interestingly, such logo-syllabic writing principles of Mayan scribes are very
 80

similar to the principles Japanese writers use.

Taking a word-final consonant is important not only because it forms CV

structure24 but also it can indicate the reading of Kanji.

For example, 歩 is a kanji sign used for the verb aruk ‘to walk’ and is also used

in different readings such as /ho/ ‘a step’ (often used to form noun incorporated words),

/po/ ‘numeral classifier for a step’ ‘a step’, or /ayu/ ‘a part of a verb ayum ‘to move

through’ (Table 4-9). How to read 歩 is determined by the following syllables く[-ku]

or む[-mu], or corresponding conjugational syllables such as かれる[-kareru] or ませ

24
Basic Japanese syllable structure is a consonant + a vowel [CV] (Kubozono 1999: 217). In
order to follow this fundamental structural rule, old Japanese often inserted consonants (1a),
merged vowels (1b), deleted vowels (1c), or inserted vowels (1d) (Kubozono 1999: 217).
はるさめ
(1) a. ha.ru + a.me → ha.ru.sa.me
さんみ
春雨 ‘spring rain’
san + i → san.mi 三位ながいき
‘tripersonal’
なげ
b. na.ga + iki → na.ge.ki 長息 = 嘆き ‘long breath = grief’
ありそ
c. a.ra + i.so → a.ri.so 荒磯 ‘rocky beach’
すみ い すみれ
su.mi.i.re → su.mi.re 墨入れ = 菫 ‘ink pot = violet’
がくもん
d. gak + mon → ga.ku.moN 学問 ‘learning’
However, modern Japanese allows syllable structures other than CV and now, V, CVV,
CVC, and CCV are permitted (Kubozono 1999: 217-218).
おおあめ
(2) a. oo + a.me → oo.a.me 大雨なが い
‘big rainfall, heavy rain’
b. na.ga + i.ki → na.ga.i.ki 長生き ‘longevity’
がっこう
c. gak + koo → gak.koo 学校 ‘school’
きゃく
d. kyak → kya.ku 客 ‘guest’
Newly accepted V is a syllable without onset. CVV is a syllable with a long vowel or
はつおん
diphthong and is recognized as two moras. CVC is a syllable ending with hatsuon ( 撥音 )a
‘moraic nasal’ or sokuon ( 促音 ) ‘moraic /Q/ ‘chocked/glottal sound’ and are also counted as two
ようおん
moras. CCV occurs in Chinese loans and called youon ( 拗音 ) ‘curved sounds’ which form one
mora but requires two Japanese syllables (kana) to be transcribed (Kubozono 1999: 217-219).
 81

る[-maseru] (passive).

The importance here is that orthographic representation and actual grammatical

analysis result in different outcomes and they should be differentiated. Sampson pointed

out that if grammatical analysis is conducted on written Japanese, it would predict the

wrong results (Sampson 1985: 185; Table 4-10).

As said above, conjugated Japanese verbs use the form of Kanji-Kana

(LOGOGRAPH-syllable) and a syllable that immediately follows a logograph usually

consists of a word-final consonant of the root and a vowel functioning as a grammatical

morpheme. The syllable determines both the reading and function of a given verb. The

structure of LOGOGRAPH-syllable is also seen in Mayan hieroglyphic writing. Most

epigraphers consider this word-final syllable as a phonetic complement that indicates a

word-final consonant. However, as I argued in the former section, if Mayan hieroglyphic

writing records word-final vowels such as topic markers, thematic suffixes, and other

grammatical morphemes and the high frequency of syllabic endings may actually signal

such vowel endings, we should reconsider the function of phonetic complements. They

could be there to record not only the word-final consonant that determines the reading of

logograph but also word-final vowels that work as grammatical morphemes.

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Ending SubType # Ratio CV-CV # Ratio # Ratio

Root 117 56.8%

Vowel Grammatical H 42 47.19% 206 67.3%

89 43.2%
Morphemes D 47 52.81%

Sonorant 22 22%

Consonant Glottal 27 27% 100 32.7%

Other 51 51%

Total 306 100%

Table 4-1. Word-Endings in “B’iki ti yanaji a ixi'imi”

WFV
a i u e o Total
PS
N 9 24 1 1 3 38
% 23.68% 63.16% 2.63% 2.63% 7.89% 100%
V 2 8 1 4 10 25
% 8% 32% 4% 16% 40% 100%
Other 60 22 0 2 8 92
% 65.22% 23.16% 0% 2.17% 8.70% 99%
Total 71 54 2 7 21 155
% 45.81% 34.84% 1.29% 4.52% 13.55% 100%

WFV=word-final vowel, PS=part of speech

Table 4-2. Number and ratio of the word-final vowel in the Mopan Maya story
 83

WFV
a i u e o Total
PS
N 264 234 9 7 22 536

% 49.25% 43.66% 1.68% 1.31% 4.10% 100%

V 132 59 1 0 1 193

% 68.39% 30.57% 0.52% 0% 0.52% 100%

Other 8 16 0 0 1 25
% 32% 64% 0% 0% 4% 100%

Total 404 309 10 7 24 754

% 53.58% 40.98% 1.33% 1% 3.18% 100%

Table 4-3. Number and ratio of the word-final vowel in Quiriguá Texts
 84

1
Ch’orti’ Cholti 2 Proto-Ch’olan2 Glyphic
Maya
Completive -i –i *-V *-Vw3,4
Root -e -V1 *-i
Transitive Incompletive -i -i *-V *-Vw3,4
Stem -e -V1 *-e’
Suffixes Imperative -V -V *-V1 *-V3,4
Perfect -b-ir -b-il - -
Participle
Completive -V -e *-V *-ij5
Derived -i
Transitive Incompletive -ø -ø *-(V)n *-ij5
Stem
Suffixes Imperative -n -n *-(V)n -
Perfect -b-ir (-n)-b-il - -
Participle
Completive -wan -wan *-wan *-l-aj 6, d
*-waan? 6, e
Incompletive
Positional Stative -V1l -V1l *-V1l
Stem Non-stative -wan -tal *-täl
Suffixes
Imperative ? -l-en *-l-en -
d
Dependent ? -l-ek *-le-k -
Lexical Stem - - *-CVC-l -
Completive -r-an1 -l-aw-ø1 - *-Vn3
-ta1 -ta-ø1
-a1
Inchoative -r2 -l2
Stem Incompletive -r-an -l-aw-el - *-aj3
Suffixes
-ta -ta-el
-a
Imperative ? ? - -
Optative ? ? - -
1
Ch’orti’ Cholti 2 Proto-Ch’olan2 Glyphic
Maya
Completive -i -i *-i *-i6
-Vy -V1y
-ay
Incompletive -i -el *-el *-Vj6
Root -Vy *-aj6
Intransitive -ay *-iij6
Stem *-Vy4
Suffixes Imperative -en -en *-en
a
Dependent -(i)k -ik *-ik
Perfect -em -em -
Participle
 85

Proto-Eastern Glyphic
Eastern Ch’olan 2
Ch’olan2 Maya
Completive -THEME-ø *-THEME-ø g *-Vj3
*-aj3
Derived Incompletive -THEME-el *-THEME-el g *-iij3
Intransitive - [j]f -THEME-al c *- [j] -THEME-al c. g *-aw4
Stem *-Vn4
Suffixes Imperative -THEME-en *-THEME-en g
Dependent d -THEME-(V)k *-THEME-(V)k g
Perfect *-em -
Participle

*1: Bricker 1986; 2: Kaufman and Norman(K&N) 1984; 3: MacLeod and Zender 2007; 4: Stuart 2007; 5
Stuart et.al 2005; 6: Kettunen and Helmke 2005
*a: In Bricker (1986:33), this is called optative; *b: indicates inflection inside of root; *c: -al is the Cholti
incompletive suffix with infixed -j passives (K&N: 103); *d: Eastern Ch’oltí’an; *e: Western Ch’olan; *f: [
] indicates inflection inside of root; *g: Reconstructed for Proto-Eastern Ch’olan but probably applicable to
Proto-Ch’olan too.
*? means no source is found whereas - means there is no marker (ø) or no applicable form is found in the
source.

Table 4-4. Verb Suffixes

 86

aruk ‘to walk, to step’

aruk-e imperative aruk-are-ru passive

aruk-u present aruk-ase-ru causative

arui-ta past aruk-ana-i negative

arui-te participial aruk-imas-u polite

aruk-eba provisional aruk-u infinite

Table 4-5. Conjugation chart for aruk ‘to walk’ (Modified from Rogers 2005: 53)

歩く aru-ku ‘to walk, to step’

歩け imperative
歩かれる passive
aru-ke aru-kare-ru

歩く present
歩かせる causative
aru-ku aru-kase-ru

歩いた past
歩かない negative
aru-i-ta aru-ka+nai

歩いて participial
歩きます polite
aru-i-te aru-ki+masu

歩けば provisional
歩く infinite
aru-keba aru-ku

Table 4-6. Conjugation chart for aruk ‘to walk’ (orthographical)

 87

waraw ‘to laugh’

waraw-e imperative waraw-are-ru passive

waraw-u present waraw-ase-ru causative

waraQ-ta past waraw-ana-i negative

waraQ-te participial waraw-imas-u polite

waraw-eba provisional waraw-u infinite

Table 4-7. Conjugation chart for waraw ‘to laugh’

笑う wara-(w)u ‘to laugh’

笑え imperative
笑われる passive
wara-(w)e wara-ware-ru

笑う present
笑わせる causative
wara-(w)u wara-wase-ru

笑った past
笑わない negative
wara-Q-ta wara-wa+nai

笑って participial
笑います polite
wara-Q-te wara-(w)i+masu

笑えば provisional
笑う infinite
wara-(w)eba wara-(w)u

Table 4-8. Conjugation chart for waraw ‘to laugh’ (orthographical)

 88

aruk ‘to walk, to step’ ayum ‘to move through’

歩く 歩む
aruku ayumu
Grammatical
aruk-u ayum-u
step/walk-PRESENT move through-PRESENT

歩く 歩む
aruku ayumu
Orthographical
aru-ku ayu-mu
step/walk-PRESENT move through-PRESENT

Table 4-9. Example of the same Kanji having different readings

Orthographical Analysis Grammatical Analysis

歩む
む *歩う
う
move through-mu *move through-u
O X
move through-PRESENT *move through-PRESENT

歩ままない *歩あ
あない
move through-ma+na-i *move through-a+na-i
O X
move through-NEG+not- *move through-NEG+not-PRESENT
PRESENT

Table 4-10. Sampson’s analysis (Modified from Sampson 1985: 185)

 89

u-mu-ti
u-mut-i(l)
3S-bird/omen-NOM
‘his bird, omen’

Figure 4-1. Examples of u-mu-ti

(Dresden Codex page 18b. modified from Montogomery with Helmke 2007)

ha’-i ha’-i?
‘this, that, that one’ ‘this, that, that one’

[QRG Stl E: D17b] [QRG Alt P’: Q01a]

Figure 4-2. Examples of ha’-i in QRG

 90

CHAPTER 5

TREATMENTS OF NON-GRAMMATICAL WORD-FINAL VOWELS

5.1 Echo-vowels and Phonotactics in Maya

Not only grammatical reasons but phonotactics in Mayan languages also support a

high frequency of vowel-final words. Hopkins reported that the Western Mayan

languages, including Chol, have high front vowels as echo vowels after an alveolar

consonant (Josserand and Hopkins 1987). Giving the example of mut “bird/omen” spelled

as mu-ti instead of mu-tu, he suggested that disharmonic spelling rules can be explained

linguistically (Hopkins 1997: 81, also cited in Coe 1999: 268-9, 2003: 381). According to

Hopkins (1997), words ending with alveolar consonants (/t, t’, tz, tz’, s, l, n/) take /i/ as an

echo-vowel while other consonants (/p, b’, m, w, ch, ch’, x, y, k, k’, h, j/) follow standard

echo-vowel criteria, copying a preceding vowel. Thus, a hypothetical spelling rule goes as

following:

Echo-vowel based spelling rule:

1) CVC1 > CV-C1i {C1= alveolars / t, t’, tz, tz’, s, l, n/}

2) CV1C2 > CV1-C2V1 {C2= /p, b’, m, w, ch, ch’, x, y, k, k’, h, j/}

This rule, however, is only applicable to root words without any suffixes; and thus

it is more suitable for nouns than verbs.

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Compare this rule to the basic harmonic rules below: 1) final consonants except

weak consonants, such as sonorants /l, m, n/ or glottals /h, ’/, are written and vowels in

final CV syllables are ignored; 2) those weak consonants, /l, m, n, h, ’/ can be

“underspelled”25(Kettunen and Helmke 2005: 57-58).

Basic Harmonic spelling rule:

1) C1V1-C2V1 > C1V1C2 {C2 = all consonants except sonorants /l, m, g/ or glottals /h, ’/ }

2) C1V1 > C1V1C2 {C2 = sonorants /l, m, n/ or glottals /h, ’/ }

The former, Hopkins’s echo-vowel based spelling rule, seems to be a word-driven

rule, while the latter, epigraphers’ spelling rule, seems to be a syllabic spelling-driven

rule. For the former rule, the process of deriving spelling is that first there is a word, and

then according to the last consonant, the last syllable is determined. On the other hand,

the latter rule is generated through attempts at glyph decipherment. Thus the process of

deriving spelling is that first, there are syllables and spellings, then, epigraphers

reconstruct words from given sequences of syllables. Such a way of interpretation is

influenced by English alphabetic writing, while word-driven reconstruction is a more

suitable process for syllabic writing systems, which is a more phonetic than English

alphabetic writing. It is still uncertain whether the perception of writing as the sound by

ancient Mayan people was more direct, but the fact that they used CV syllables for their

writing suggests that phonetic, word-driven spelling would be more likely.

The rule 2) of the Basic Harmonic spelling rule is better stated:

25
Not written but assumed to be there. E.g. AJAW-le > ajawlel
 92

3) C1V1C2 > C1V1 {C2 = sonorants /l, m, n/ or glottals /h, ’/ }

This process is different from the acrophonic derivation Macri and Looper

discussed (Macri and Looper 2000), for their study focuses on the derivation of CV

syllabic signs from Maya CVC roots, while the rule 3) is not limited to CV signs. Rather,

it is more applicable to the sequence of word-final consonant and -VC suffixes such as a

possessive noun marker –V1l; or CVC grammatical morphemes suffixed to CVC roots,

such as a positional stem suffix –tal. Interestingly, many grammatical morphemes end

with a weak consonant l (see Table 4-3 for example). As Table 4-1 in Chapter 4 shows, in

the Mopan Maya story, nearly 50% of consonantal endings are weak consonants. This

suggests that in Mayan writing, when a given word C1V1C2 ends with a weak consonant,

C1V1-C2V1 spelling strictly requires the presence of C2 while C1V1 has two possibilities:

C1V1, or C1V1C2.

The echo-vowel based rule Hopkins suggested is important in two ways. First,

some of non-synharmonic spelling can be explained phonologically. Second, this echo-

vowel can be recorded and that means they are not silent but actually uttered. In Mopan

Maya, there are also audible echo-vowels (Hofling 2006, personal communication; Ulrich

and Ulrich 1965)26. An obvious example is winik ‘man’. The voice recording Hofling

played for me clearly recorded the word as /winiki/ not /winik/. In hieroglyphic writing,

the word is often spelled as wi-ni-ki or wi-WINIK-ki. In the latter case, wi and ki are

26
There is no such echo-vowel in Yukatek. However, sometimes there are voiceless vowels in
word-final position (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965).
 93

both phonetic complements that help distinguish WINIK sign from WINAL reading,

which occasionally uses the same sign. Besides helping determination of the reading,

whether a word-final consonant is k or l, having ki sign may also indicate a word-final

vowel /i/. According to Hopkins (1997) echo-vowel criteria, alveolar consonants (/t, t’, tz,

tz’, s, l, n/) takes /i/ and other consonants (/p, b’, m, w, ch, ch’, x, y, k, k’, h, j/) copies

preceding vowel. As examples in Chapter 4 show, a word-final echo-vowel may have

several grammatical functions, such as a topic marker in Mopan Maya nouns or a

completive marker for intransitive verbs in proto-Ch’olan. Thus in many cases, it seems

natural to have a word-final vowel. For the example of winik ‘man’, to spell a word winik

/winiki/, using ki sign is predictable and understandable because the word-final /i/ exists

and native speakers perceive that sound as an echo-vowel with the grammatical function

of a topic marker. In other words, when the word is spelled as wi-ni-ki, or wi-WINIK-ki,

it should be read as /winiki/ without omitting the word-final vowel /i/ as epigraphers

generally do.

Many epigraphers (see Houston et al 2004, Kaufman 2007) have rejected

Hopkins’s suggestion. However, as vowel endings seem to be more common than used to

be thought, reconsidering his suggestion could bring new insight for understanding

Mayan hieroglyphic writing.

As I study Mayan hieroglyphic writing, as well as perceiving it from native logo-

syllabic writing user’s perspective, it seems that there are neither harmonic nor

disharmonic spelling rules for Mayan hieroglyphic writing. Rather, the text is pronounced

as it is written and if words end with consonants, those are underspelled or written as it is

heard by native speakers. This hypothesis is intuitive and to explain in more detail, we
 94

should look into how Japanese logo-syllabic writing system works in conjunction with

other consonant-ending languages and with another syllabic writing system.

5.2 Word-final vowels and Japanese writing system

5.2.0 Introduction

In this section, only important issues relevant to Mayan hieroglyphic writing will

be discussed. A detailed explanation of Japanese phonological inventory is presented in

Appendix C. A dot “.” in a Japanese word represents a syllable boundary. Angle brackets

“< >” are used to indicate syllabic spelling in Japanese or Linear B, while the

phonological shape of the original word is indicated between two slashes “//”. An asterisk

(*) indicates a reconstructed term unless otherwise noted.

Issues discussed here involve two phonological processes: glottal stop insertion

and vowel devoicing; and two treatments for word-final consonants in foreign words:

paragogization and modified syllables.

5.2.1 Phonological Processes

5.2.1.0 Introduction

Phonological Processes in Japanese occur in colloquial forms but are not usually

reflected in writing. Usually, ancient Japanese preserves underling forms and original

forms better than modern Japanese, which has been affected by the influx of borrowed

words. Two aspects, glottal stop insertion and vowel devoicing might be relevant to the

study of Mayan hieroglyphic writing in terms of understanding relationships between

 95

spoken and written languages.

5.2.1.1 Glottal stop insertion

At the beginning and end of utterances, vowels may be preceded and followed by

a glottal stop [ ʔ], respectively27.

えん
(1) a. 円 [e.n] 'yen': /eN/ → [ẽN] ~ [ʔʔẽN]
きし
b. 岸 [ki.shi] 'shore' : /kisi/ → [ki ̥ɕiʔʔ]
う
c. 鵜 [u] 'cormorant': /ɯ/ → [ɯ ʔ] [ʔʔ ɯ ʔ]

In Mayan, words that appear to be written with word-initial vowels are actually

preceded by glottal stops. For example, il (VC) ‘to see’ is actually ’il (’VC) and has a
えん
CVC form. In example (5a), 円 [e.n] 'yen' (VC) also has a [ʔʔẽN] (’VC) form. (5b) and

(5c) show that word-final glottal stops are not written either. In Maya hieroglyphic

writing, word-final glottal stops are also usually ignored.

5.2.1.2 Vowel Devoicing

In the Tokyo dialect, /i/ and /u/ are devoiced when between voiceless consonants

27
When word is uttered with emphasis, this glottal stop is audible, and is often transcribed with
っ
a small letter [tsu].
a. つつく ʔ つっつく
/tsutsuku/ [tsu.tsu.ku] 'poke': → [tsutsuku] ~ [tsu tsuku]:
b. やっと / yatto/~/ ya.Q.to/~ [yaʔto] 'finally'
そくおん
This small っ[tsu] is called sokuon and same as /Q/. /Q/ is a choked sound called sokuon ( 促音).
Phonologically, it is realized as the first half of a geminate (doubled) obstruent but some
considers /Q/ as a simple geminate consonant cluster such as /pp/, /tt/, or /ss/.
 96

except when they are in accented moras (Kubozono 1999b: 76),

しか
(2) a. 鹿 [shi.ka] ‘deer’ : /shika/ → [ɕii̥ka]
がくせい
b. 学生 [ga.ku.se.i] ‘student’: ɯsei/ → [gakɯ
/gakɯ ɯ̥ sei ̥] ɯ̥sei])
(or [gakɯ

or word-finally after a voiceless consonant (Kubozono 1999b: 76).

からす
(3) a. 烏 [ka.ra.su] ‘crow’: /kaɺasu/ → [kaɺ asɯ
ɯ̥ ]

b. です [de.su] ‘common sentence-ending copula (present)’: /des ɯ / → [des ɯ̥ ]

They are voiced elsewhere (Kubozono 1999b: 76).

し が
(4) a. 滋賀 [shi.ga] ‘Shiga (toponym)’ /shiga/ → [ ɕ i ̥ga]
がくもん
b. 学問 [ga.ku.mo.n] ‘learning’: ɯmoN/ → [gak ɯ̥ moN]
/gakɯ

Sometimes, /o/ may be devoiced when there are two or more adjacent moras

containing /o/.

こころ
(5) a. 心 [ko.ko.ro] ‘heart’: /kokoɺ o/ → [ko̥̥koɺ o]

Devoicing is very common not only in fast speech but also in normal slow speech.

However, in some Western dialects and in formal speech, every vowel is pronounced if it
 97

occurs in written Japanese. In other words, vowel devoicing is more common in Eastern

dialects than in Western and barely happens in written form.

Because of vowel devoicing, according to some scholars’ accounts, a word sounds

がくせい
as if it has at least one CVC syllable structure. For example, (1b) 学生 [ga.ku.se.i]

‘student’, which has a CV.CV.CV.V structure, might be recognized as *[gak.sei]

こころ
(CVC.CVV) or *[gak.se] (CVC.CV). In the same way, (4) 心 [ko.ko.ro] ‘heart’

(CV.CV.CV) may sound like *[kkoro] (CCV.CV). However, the vowel devoicing that

occurs in spoken Japanese, especially in the Tokyo dialect, does not affect how the word

is written. In other words, even if a given vowel is very weak or almost disappears,

writing still records its existence and even if a speaker does not hear the sound, writing

conventions force one to write the silent or deleted vowel. This might be relevant to

Mayan echo-vowels and ancient Mayan peoples’ perceptions of echo-vowels and their

choices of CV syllables.

When ancient Mayan people wrote their own language, they chose to use logo-

syllabic writing systems that might require vowel endings. As described above, word-

final vowels that bear grammatical functions are common in Maya discourse. For the

purpose of recording such vowels, syllables would be a good choice. If one wanted to

have consonant endings, logographs would be a better choice. In contrast, modern Maya

has adopted Spanish alphabetic writing system that easily allows consonant endings. As

Tuttle and Sandoval (2002) pointed out, the perception of sounds may vary with the

speaker’s intuition and pronunciation. Perhaps, with the introduction of alphabetic

writing systems, formerly recorded word-final vowels might have been recorded less. By
 98

the same token, formerly underspelled word-final consonants may have become recorded

more precisely because with alphabets, writers could write them down without word-final

vowels. Moreover, written Maya might have recorded vowel endings that modern Maya

speakers or scholars no longer hear or recognize.

5.2.2 Treatments for Word-final Consonants

5.2.2.0 Introduction

The Japanese writing system favors CV syllable structure and mora. Even if the

system encounters a syllable type outside of this criterion, such as a CVC syllable,

Japanese usually finds same way to adapt new types by altering them into acceptable

forms. Some phonological traits have been discussed in the former section. In this

section, I put more focus on the strategies in orthographic rules that may shed light on the

relation between syllable-final consonants and syllable-final vowels.

5.2.2.1 Paragogization in Borrowed words

There are many English borrowings in modern Japanese. However, when native

English speakers hear those borrowed words, they may not be able to identify the original

words due to their dramatically changed pronunciations. Word endings have been

changed substantially. Adding an extra vowel makes the original sound different or weird

to native English speakers.

This phenomenon is called paragoge or vocalic epenthesis, which is the addition

of a sound to the end of a word. Paragoge is widely seen in Finnish and Japanese

(Campbell 2004), but especially in Japanese. It appears very frequently and strongly

affects Japanese writing, as well as Japanese perception of sounds. Indeed, even if the
 99

word sounds as if it ends with consonant, a vowel following right after the last consonant

is expected and written with a CV syllable (Figure 5-1).

To transcribe a consonant, the Japanese CV syllabic writing system needs to

attach a vowel to the consonant, for there is no character for an individual consonant

except the moraic nasal stop /N/. In order to transcribe an utterance or word, each

phoneme should fall into the form of CV, which can be represented by one letter. For

example, in the Figure 5-1, the consonant “l” cannot be written by itself in Japanese thus

a vowel [ɯ] is attached to the phoneme [l] to form CV cluster, lu, which can be written by

one character “ル/る(Katakana/Hiragana)”.

According to Kubozono (1999: 231), /u/ is chosen because it is the shortest vowel

and thus easily becomes a silent vowel. In other words, /u/ has the strongest feature of [ -

vowel ] for Japanese28 thus insertion of /u/ makes a CV whose sound is closest to the

original sound of C. For the same reason, /i/ is chosen more frequently than /o/. The

phoneme [n](/n,m,ŋ/) is an exception, for it is considered as a unitary sound and cannot

be paragogized. Thus [n] is assigned to an individual letter ん/ン.

5.2.2.2 Modified Syllables

Ainu

28
Usually [back, low] vowels are the most marked (most sonorous) and [front, unrounded, high]
vowels are less marked (least sonorous); and generally, /a/ is the most sonorous and /i/ is least
marked (Kaufman 2008, personal communication). However, which vowels are more marked
than others differs from language to language, and Japanese has different criteria. This seems to
disagree with the basic criteria that rounded vowels are more marked. However, the Japanese
high back vowel /u/ is centralized as well as “compression rounded” rather than protrusion
rounded as [u], or unrounded as [ɯ] (Kubozono 1999). Thus, it meets the conditions that
unrounded and high vowels are less marked.
 100

The Ainu language is spoken in northern Japanese islands including Hokkaido29

and is considered a language isolate. Like the Japanese language, Ainu language is SOV

with postpositions. In transcribing and transliterating Ainu in conjunction with the

Japanese syllabary, the following orthographic conventions and rules are applied.

Transcriptions are made by both Romanized scripts and Japanese Katakana syllables.

Transliterations are represented as italics. Underlining in line 3 represents a last

consonant in CVC syllable in Ainu while underlining in line 4 indicates a modified

syllable corresponding to the consonant underlined in line 3. In line 10, for the

morphological analysis on Japanese translation, /Q/ is used for sokuon ‘geminated

sounds’ and /N/ for moraic nasals30. An example using this system is shown below.

1. S V (sentence structure of Ainu)

2. eani eiruska (transliteration)
3. e.a.ni e.i.rus.ka (transliteration with syllable break)
4. エアニ エ・イルシカ (transcription in Japanese Katakana)
5. eani e-iruska (morphological segmentation)
6. you 2S-get angry (morphological analysis)
7. you get angry. (translation in English)
8. S V (sentence structure of English)
9. お前は怒った31。 (translation in Japanese)
10. omae-ha oko-Qta (morphological segmentation of Japanese)
11. you-SBJ get-angry-PAST (morphological analysis of Japanese)
13. S V (sentence structure of Japanese)

29
According to Ethnologue (Gordon ed. 2005), the ethnic population of Ainu is 15,000 and there
were at least 19 dialects. However, it is nearly extinct, for there are only 15 fluent speakers left
as of 1996.
30
/N/ is not showed in this example. For the definition of the moraic nasals, see Chapter 3.1.
31
Ainu verbs do not have tense. Whether an event happens at past, present, or future, is based on
context, with or without temporal word(s), or the temporal auxiliary verb a (Kayano 2007).
 101

(6) shows a basic sentence structure of Ainu, English, and Japanese.

(6) a. S O1 O2 V
huci sisam okkaypo aynuitak epakasnu
hu.ci si.sam o.Q.ka.y.po a.y.nu.i.tak e.pa.kas.nu
フチ シサム オッカイポ アイヌイタク エパカシヌ
huci sisam okkaypo aynu=itak epakasnu
grandmother Japanese adolescent Ainu=language teach someone something
grandmother told a Japanese adolescent the Ainu language.
S V O1 O2
おばあさんは和人の若者にアイヌ語を教えた。
obaasan-ha wa=zin-no wakamono-ni Ainu=go-wo osie-ta
grandmather-SBJ Japan=person-of adolescent-to Ainu=language-OBJ teach-PAST
S O1 O2 V

[Modified from Kayano 2007]

Ainu’s morphology is polysynthetic and its basic syllable structure is CV or CVC.

(7) a. usaoruspe aeyaykotuymasiramsuypa

u.sa.o.rus.pe a.e.ya.y.ko.tu.y.ma.si.ram. su.y.pa
ウサオルスペ アエヤイコト゜イマシラムスイパ
usa-oruspe a-e-yay-ko-tuyma-si-ram-suy-pa
various-rumor 1S-about-self-by-far-own-heart-swing-REPEAT
I keep swinging my heart distantly(=wonder) about various rumors.
いろいろ うわさ わたし とお じ ぶ ん こころ ゆ つづ おも めぐ
色々の 噂 について、 私 は遠く自分の 心 を揺らし続ける＝思いを巡らす。
iroiro-no uwasa-ni-tuite watasi-ha tooku zibun-no kokoro-wo yurasi=tudukeru
various-of rumor-of-about I-SBJ far own-of heart-OBJ swing=REPEAT

b. tanto mororan un karpa (kuarpa)

ta.N.to mo.ro.ra.N u.N kar.pa (ku.ar.pa)
タント モロラン ウン カラパ（ク・アラパ）
tanto mororan un karpa（ku-arpa）
today Muroran to 1S-go
‘Today, I go to Muroran’
今日、私は室蘭へ行きます。
kyou watashi-ha Muroran-he iki-masu
today I-SBJ Muroran-to go- STATEMENT:POLITE
 102

c. hoskicup Satporo un kukor ekasi arpa

hos.ki.cup sa.Q.po.ro u.N ku.kor e.ka.si ar.pa
ホシキチュプ サッポロ ウン ク・コロ エカシ アラパ
hoski=cup Satporo un ku-kor ekasi arpa
last=month Sapporo to 1S-of grandfather go
‘Last month, my grandfather went to Sapporo’
先月、私の祖父は札幌へ行きました。
sen=getsu watashi-no-sofu-ha Sapporo-he iki-mashi-ta
last=month I-of-grandfather-SBJ Sapporo-to go- STATEMENT:POLITE-PAST

d. apto as a korka sirmemanka somo ki

ap.to as a kor.ka sir.me.ma.N.ka so.mo ki
アプト アシ ア コロカ シリメマンカ ソモ キ
apto as a korka sir-meman-ka somo ki
rain fall PAST but DV(=surroundings)-cool-even not do
‘It rained but it is not even cooler.
雨が降ったけれど、涼しくなりもしない。
ame-ga hut-ta keredo suzusiku-nari-mo si-nai
rain-SBJ fall-PAST but cool-become-even do-not

[Modified from Kayano 2007]

Unlike Japanese, Ainu allows consonant clusters and has sounds that Japanese

does not have. That forces a writer who uses Japanese for the transcription of Ainu to

create new orthographic rules suitable for Ainu such as using シ (Katakana letter small
si) for a final s. Similarly, プ(Katakana letter small pu) is used for a final p as in hoskicup
‘last month’ ホシキチュプ. /cu/ is phonemically [tsu/tʃu] but a different sound than

Japanese [tsu](ツ) thus チュ is chosen for this sound in order to record more accurate

pronunciation. Katakana is prefered over Hiragana32 probably because the sound of Ainu

32
Kanji is also used for many Ainu terms but the usage of Kanji in Ainu will not be discussed in
this section.
 103

is foreign and native Japanese speakers tend to use Katakana for foreign words or sounds

in general.

Other foreign sounds

ようおん
Such modified syllables are also used to transcribe Youon 拗音‘curved sounds’

that were introduced through Chinese loanwords and were established in Japanese in

order to preserve original pronunciations. Youon is transcribed with a form of [a given

Consonant + i ] sign plus a small [y + a given vowel] sign (e.g. {/k/+ /i/ = [ki] き/キ} +

{/j/ + /a/ = [ya] ゃ/ャ}= /kya/[k(i)ya] きゃ/キャ). The same adaptation mechanism allows

the recording of other foreign sounds such as [t] and [v]. For example, [ti] ティ in

modern Japanese used to use ち/チ[ʨi] or て/テ[te] for transcription(Kubozono 1999b:

119).

(8) a. team [ti:m]: [chi.i.mu] チーム

→ [ti.i.mu] ティーム

b. tissue [ti∫u:]: [te.s.syu] テッシュ

→ [ti.s.syu] ティッシュ

[v(u)] (ヴ) is another example of the foreign sound that modern Japanese has

gradually adopted in its orthography.

(9) a. Victoria [vikto:riэ]: [bi.ku.to.ri.a] ビクトリア

→ [vi.ku.to.ri.a] ヴィクトリア
 104

b. valley [væli]: [ba.re.e] バレー / [ba.re.i] バレイ

→ [va.re.e] ヴァレー

c. groove [gru:v]: [gu.ru.u.bu] グルーブ

→ [gu.ru.u.vu] グルーヴ

Both [ti] (ティ) and [v(u)] (ヴ) did not exist in ancient Japanese writing and are only used

for loanwords and transliterated foreign words, but as the borrowed sounds become more

popular, modification of existing syllables is motivated in order to transcribe those

sounds more accurately.

Modified Latin alphabets in Colonial Mayan Documents

Although their motivation might have been different from Japanese or Ainu

scribes who try to record sounds by modifying Japanese syllables, colonial Maya scribes

also used modified Latin alphabets to write as if they were syllabic signs. For example,

at.5 represented a ti ho ‘at Merida’ (Bricker 1989, example is from Edmonson 1976:

714n cited in Bricker 1989: 44). The Mayan number five, ho, is homophonous with the

name of Merida and is used as a rebus. A consonantal letter t with a dot (.) represents a

syllable ti ‘in’ ‘at’ ‘to’ (Bricker 1989:44). The first five pages of the Book of Chilam

Balam of Chan Kan has many examples of abbreviation conventions (vowel deletion) of

Spanish adopted into colonial Mayan scripts (Bricker 1989: 44). According to Bricker

(1989: 44), in Spanish, several symbolic conventions are used for abbreviations and they

are used alone or in combination: (1) a period at the end of the word or immediately

following deleted letter(s), such as Señor as S.r, Sr., and Sõr (Cuyás 1903: 585, cited in
 105

Bricker 1989: 44); (2) a tilde ( ˜ ) over the letter immediately preceding or following the

~ ~
deletion or extended over the whole word, such as d for de ‘of’, q for que ‘who’ ‘that’,

mẽcion for mención ‘mention’, sustẽto for sustento ‘sustenance’ ‘support’, and Rmrz. for

Ramírez ‘Ramirez (personal name)’ (examples are from: de la Garza et al. 1983: 3-6;

Cuyás 1904: 584-85; Millares and Mantecón 1955:66; and are cited in Bricker 1989: 44-

45); and (3) raising, or treating as superscripts, the letter or letters that immediately

follow the deleted portion of the word, such as mtd for mitad ‘half’, ‘middle’(Cuyás 1904:

584-85; Millares and Mantecón 1955:66; cited in Bricker 1989: 45). The Maya scribe

who wrote the first five pages of the Chan Kan marked vowel and consonant deletion

with both periods and tildes and used “raising’ to mark syllable boundaries with periods

and tildes (Bricker 1989: 44). These conventions differed from native Spanish

speaker/writer usage (Bricker 1989: 44-45). For example, ayikal ‘rich’ ‘wealthy’ was

written as ãy.k.l., instead of aykl.; and yahalcab ‘dawn’ as y.h.l cab, instead of yhl.cab or

yhlcab (Bricker 1989: 44-45). The Mayan scribe treated the Latin alphabet as a syllabary;

and that was partly because most of the Spanish names for the letters of the Latin alphabet

are pronounced as syllables, such as b /be/, d /de/ h /ache/, or l /ele/ (Bricker 1989: 45).

Bricker (1989) did not describe all examples of vowel deletion in the Chan Kan,

and it is difficult to determine the relationships between consonantal letters representing

CV syllables and the deleted vowels that the modified letters represent, or vocalic letters

representing V syllables or VC grammatical suffixes and the deleted consonants that are

signaled by the modified vowels. However, the closeness of the place of articulation or

echo-vowel criteria might have affected their choice of consonantal letters substituting for
 106

CV syllables. For example, Hopkins (1997) noted that words ending with alveolar

consonants (/t, t’, tz, tz’, s, l, n/) take /i/ as an echo-vowel; and t. in at.5 (> a ti ho ‘at

Merida’) represents the preposition ti ‘in’ ‘at’ ‘to’ (Bricker 1989: 44). Although the

context might be the most important factor for reading t. as ti, the place of articulation

and echo-vowel phenomena might have affected the use of t. as ti. The abbreviated forms

of other consonants (/p, b’, m, w, ch, ch’, x, y, k, k’, h, j/), which according to Hopkins

(1997) follow standard echo-vowel criteria, could represent any of five vowels; but as

Kaufman noted (2008, personal communiation), Ca seems to be the most frequent choice

for word-final syllables representing word-final consonants -C in the hieroglyphic script.

Hence if an abbreviated consonantal letter was used, Ca might have been the most

standard interpretation for non-alveolar consonants (/p, b’, m, w, ch, ch’, x, y, k, k’, h, j/).

The conventions the colonial Mayan scribes used suggests that logo-syllabic

writing influenced how they perceived sounds and wrote their own language using a non-

native writing system (the Latin alphabet letters). Although I do not explore this topic

further, how the Colonical Mayan scribes interwove logo-syllabic writing with the Latin

alphabet writing is intriguing in many respects, such as the represention of cultural

identity through writing, the nature of the logo-syllabic writing system, and

correspondances between colonial documents and hieroglyphic texts written by the

Mayan scribes.

5.2.3 Conclusion

Although the fundamental syllable structure of the ancient Japanese language is

CV, different types of syllable structures, which do not agree with that basic form, have
 107

become accepted over time. Phonological changes and adaptations are more obvious and

clearer in the spoken language than the written one and spoken dialects vary. For

example, neither Maya nor Japanese writing records word-initial and word-final glottal

stops. Vowel devoicing, which is common in the Tokyo dialect, results in consonant

clusters and consonant-final word endings. However, that occurs only in spoken Japanese

and written words preserve those devoiced vowels. This may be relevant to word-final

vowels in Mayan writing but to investigate this issue further, a deeper understanding and

analysis of the relationships between spoken and written Mayan language is necessary.

This could be a subject for future study.

There are two main strategies of transcribing foreign borrowed words and sounds

in Japanese. One is paragoge and the other is modified syllables. The rules of

paragogization are intuitive but also linguistically explainable (Kubozono 1999b).

Modification of syllables is a way to transcribe sounds more accurately but it is done

within the conventional orthographic systems. In other words, no brand-new sign has

been generated for any foreign sound.

Japanese examples suggest that even though a given word does not fit Japanese

syllabic structure, there are ways to transcribe such non-CV words with CV syllables.

Moreover, Japanese writing picks a word-final vowel after any consonant and records it

within the norm of their writing systems.

 108

5.3 Other CV syllable writing – Linear B writing system

5.3.0. Introduction

Maya words often end in consonants, yet their ancient writing system adopted

consonant-vowel syllables that give vowel endings. When Japanese orthography

encounters a word with consonant ending, it tends to find a solution in paragoge due to

the strong CV structure of Japanese language that postulates the vowel ending. However,

the basic root structure of Maya languages is CVC, thus a consonant ending is premised.

To explore this conflict, I will examine Linear B writing system33 because consulting a

language whose basic word structure ends in consonant yet whose writing system

employs CV syllabic signs may help to find intermediate rules and solutions.

5.3.1 Linear B Writing System

5.3.1.1 Basic Writing Criterion

Linear B texts are commonly written with a stylus on clay tablets but a few were

drawn with paint and brush on pots (Benett 1996: 125-126, Sampson 1985: 62-63). The

sign-groups are written horizontally from left to right with the ruled line below the text

(Benett 1996: 126). Words are separated by three graphic devices: a word-divider, a

change in the height of the signs, or a space. Words are rarely carried over from one line

to the next. Some words are emphasized by height. When a series of parallel statements

or items occurs on several lines of a text, it is often arranged in a column (Benett 1996:

126). Below is an example sentence of Linear B writing (Figure 5-2).

 109

5.3.1.2 Linear B Syllabary

The basic Linear B Syllabary contains 59 signs: signs for each of the five vowels

and 54 signs for the consonant-vowel (CV) combinations of twelve consonants (Figure 5-

3). The five vowel glyphs are used primarily at the beginnings of words and sometimes

occur in a sequence of CV1-V1 not as a single syllable with a long vowel (CVV) but two

syllables (CV+V). The second could begin with aspiration or be in hiatus (Benett 1996:

126). Although the distinction between voiced, voiceless plain, and aspirate stops was

essential in Greek phonology, such distinctions are almost entirely ignored in the

Linear B script (Sampson 1985: 71). Linear B inscriptions also used ideograms34 in

conjunction with numeral signs (Sampson 1985: 73-74).

It is assumed that the d- and t-series represent syllables beginning with a dental

stop, the k-series with gutturals35, the p- with labials, the q-series with labiovelars, and

the r-series with either liquid, /r/ or /l/. The nature of the z-series is unclear (Benett 1996:

126). Voiced and unvoiced, aspirated and unaspirated consonants are represented by the

same signs (Benett 1996: 126). Spoken syllables beginning with a consonant cluster are

represented by two or more signs. For example, C1C2V1 /pra/ is written as C1V1-C2V2

<pa-ra>, and thus not distinguishable from the sequence of two syllables C1V1-C2V1

/para/.

Various syllables for example beginning with /m-/ or /t-/ have no common

33
Linear B phonemic inventory is presented in Appendix D.
34
They are not used as logograms in writing sentences (Bennett 1996: 125).
35
Including velar, uvular, and pharyngeal consonants.
 110

element as is the case with various syllables ending in /-a/ or /-u/ (Sampson 1985: 65-66).

Linear B’s syllables are segmental in comparison to Ethiopic script, which is more

‘syllabic’ rather than segmental because “each physically continuous written mark stands

for a syllable. The shape of the graphs is determined by the segmental composition of the

syllables, so that syllables beginning with a given consonant share the same basic outline

and each vowel is indicated by a consistent method of modifying the consonantal

outline36 (Sampson 1985: 65-66, Figure 5-4).”

By the same token, Japanese is also segmental rather than syllabic because each

syllable has a unique figure and they do not share the same outline37. In the case of Maya

hieroglyphs, they are most likely segmental but groups with the same consonant and

groups with the same vowels may share features. For example, ma and b’a only differ in

the infixed signs and that may suggest that they share the same vowel(+[a]) and the

similar consonantal articulately point (+labial). mu and b’u signs are also similar and

may influenced by shared features (+labial, +[u]). However, without further detailed

investigation, it is hard to determine whether they are more segmental or more “syllabic”.

5.3.1.3 CV syllables in Non-CV structure

It is important to note that Pre-Classical Greek (Mycenaean) had a variety of more

36
Of course, there are some exceptions (Sampson 1985: 66).
37
Japanese shows a contrast between voiced and voiceless consonants whereas Eastern Ch’olan
shows a contrast between voiceless and glottalized consonants. In Japanese, recognition of this
contrast is clearly shown in kana writing (discussed in a later section). However, in Maya, in
terms of writing, there are no graphic similarities between voiceless and glottalized sounds.
However, there seem to be several similarities among syllables that share the same vowel or
similar articulation points. This could be a subject of future study.
 111

complex syllables and the Linear B scribes used a moderately complex set of rules for

converting spoken words into written form (Sampson 1985: 67). For instance, the

treatment of diphthongs depends on the identity of the final vowel (Sampson 1985: 67).

Diphthongs ending in /-u/ are treated as sequences of two vowels such as <ga-si-re-u> for

/gwasileus/ ‘chief’. On the other hand, diphthongs ending in /-i/, the /i/ is ignored, as in

<po-me> for /poimēn/ ‘shepherd’. However, that is not always the case. When /–i/

diphthongs38 are followed by another vowel, they are written with the graph for the

corresponding /j-/ syllables like <pa-ra-jo> for /palaios/ ‘old’ (Sampson 1985: 67). In the

conventional transcription, /j-/ and /w-/ represent English /y/ and /w/ respectively.

Moreover, [j] is written as /i + vowel/. [w] glides are perceived as sequences of /u +

vowel/ as in /kuanos/ ‘lapis lazuli’= <ku-wa-no>. Consequently, there were some

phonological impossibilities in Mycenaean Greek (Sampson 1985: 71). /ji/ and /wu/

would not have been distinguished from /i/ and /u/ respectively. Likewise /kwu/ and its

counterparts with aspirated and voiced stops were not distinguished from /ku/. There are

also special graphs that can be used to indicate the two diphthongs /ai, au/ in word-initial

position only. Thus, /aiwolos/ ‘nimble’ could be written either <ai-wo-ro> or <a-wo-ro>.

In the latter, /-i/, a part of a diphthong, is ignored.

According to Sampson (1985: 67), when a consonant phoneme occurs in speech

preceding another consonant or word-finally, so that it is not part of a CV sequence, its

treatment depends on whether it is a continuant (/s, m, n, r, l, w/) or a stop. Stops were

written by borrowing the next vowel to make up a CV syllable. Rogers called this

38
Benett (1996) seems to be skeptical about dipthongs.
 112

borrowed vowel as “dummy vowel”39

(10) a. /ktoinā/ ‘plot of land’ = <ko-to-na>

b. /ptelewās/ ‘of elm-wood’ = <pe-te-re-wa>
c. /aksones/ ‘axles’ = <a-ko-so-ne>
d. /tripos/ ‘tripod’ = <ti-ri-po>
e. /alektruōn/ ‘cock’ = <a-re-ku-tu-ru-wo>

If there is no vowel after a stop consonant in a word-final consonant cluster, it

seems that an echo vowel is used (Sampson 1985: 67):

(11) a. /wanaks/ ‘king’ = <wa-na-ka>

b. /aithiokws/ ‘sunburnt’ = <ai-ti-jo-go>

On the other hand, continuants were written with a ‘borrowed’ vowel only if the

next sound is a sonorant (/m, n, r, l, w/). If a continuant consonant (/n, r/) is word-final or

is followed by a stop or /s/40, it is simply omitted.

(12) a. /phasgana/ ‘swords’ = <pa-ka-na>

b. /worzōn/ ‘performing’ = <wo-zo>

c. /aiksmans/, points’ = <ai-ka-sa-ma>

39
Rogers (2005: 147-149) introduced an idea of dummy vowels. For example, there were no
symbols in Linear B for vowelless consonants so that they used a dummy vowel to form a CV
syllable. Thus a cluster /ksa/ was spelled as <ka-sa> and /a/ after /k/ was not pronounced. For
him, Maya writing also use “dummy” vowels (Rogers 2005: 237). However, as I have described
above, word-final vowels in Maya might have been pronounced so that the concept of a dummy
vowel might not be applicable to the Maya writing system.
40
Sampson (1985: 67) categorizes them as obstruents.
 113

In the last example, /n/ was omitted because it preceded the obstruent /s/ while /s/ (/ns/)

was omitted as a word-final continuant. Continuants, written with a borrowed vowel

before sonorants, were spelled as follows:

(13) a. /amnīsos/ ‘Amnisos (a place name)’ = <a-mi-ni-so>

b. /dosmos/ ‘contribution’ = <do-so-mo>

c. /wrinos/ ‘leather’ = <wi-ri-no>

d. /ksenwios/ ‘intended for guests’ = <ke-se-ni-wi-jo>

There are several arguments about whether there is any general linguistic rationale

for the rules about when a consonant is omitted and when it is written with a borrowed

vowel. Sampson (1985: 68) cited Ruijgh (1967: 24-25) to introduce the suggestion that

the explanation for the phenomenon may be that sonorants are more like vowels than

obstruents, so that the sequence “consonant + sonorant” is closer to the sequence

“consonant + vowel” (the consonant of which will always be written) than is the sequence

“consonant + obstruent”. However, there were two main objections to Ruijgh’s proposal.

First, it does nothing to explain why it is only continuent consonants which are omitted

before obstruents. Secondly, it may be true that in some sense a sequence such as /sm/ is

phonetically closer to the pattern CV than a sequence such as /sp/, but if that fact were

relevant to the way Mycenaean speakers perceived the phonology of their language, it

should have led them to provide their writing system with a special graph for /sm/. Since

they did not invent a graph */sm/, why did they feel the need to write /s/ in this

combination? Ventris and Chadwick (1956: 45) offered different perspectives on this
 114

matter. They suggested that the rule is that continuant consonants are omitted when final

in their syllable because sounds at the ends of syllables are inherently less prominent than

sounds at the beginnings of syllables. For example, /khalkos/ was spelled as <ka-ko>

while /amnīsos/ was spelled as <a-mi-ni-so>. The consonant cluster /lk-/ is not a possible

beginning for a Greek word so we know that /khalkos/ must divide into syllables as

/khal.kos/ rather than as /kha.lkos/41. The /l/ in this word is final in the first syllable, so

that it is ignored in Linear B writing. The third possible syllabification, /khalk.os/ would

be eliminated by a general rule that syllable boundaries in Greek are placed as far to the

left as possible. For another example /amnīsos/, /mn-/ is a possible initial cluster in Greek

(e,g, /mnēmē/ ‘memory’) therefore amnisos is syllabified /a.mnī.sos/ and the /m/ is

written with a borrowed /i/. By the same token, /r/ precedes sonorants /m, w/ yet these

words are consistently spelled such as:

(14) a. /sperma/ ‘seed’ = <pe-ma>

b. /korwos/ ‘boy’ = < ko-wo>

/rm-, rw-/ are not possible initial clusters in Greek, the words must be divided as

/sper.ma/, /kor.wos/ respectively and syllable final rule predicts omission of the /r/.

Sampson (1985: 69) went further than Ventris and Chadwick (1956) by

reformulating their principle in a way that makes it more general and allows us to specify

which consonants are written and which are omitted without making any reference to

41
The dot (.) is substitute for the symbol $ that Ventris and Chadwick used to represent phonetic
syllable boundary.
 115

consonant classes such as “obstruent”, “continuant” or the like. The general rule, which is

not entirely satisfactory but comes close to being correct, is as follows: 1) consonants are

written (if necessary, with borrowed vowels) whenever they precede the vowel of their

syllable and are omitted whenever they follow the vowel of their syllable. This rule is

more like Ruijgh’s; 2) Greek permits stops to cluster relatively freely with other

following consonants so that in a sequence “vowel + stop + consonant + vowel “, the

syllable boundary will normally precede the stop, hence this will be included in the Linear

B spelling. According to this remark, /aksones/ ‘axles’ is syllabified as /a.kso.nes/

because in Greek, /ks-/ is a permitted, indeed common initial cluster. By the same token,

/alektruōn/ would be <a-re-ku-tu-ru-wo> because /ktr-/ is not a possible Greek word-

initial cluster. On the other hand, /kt-/ is possible (e.g. /ktenos/ ‘(genitive of) comb’),

where as /-k, -kt, - ktr/ are all quite impossible in word-final position so on the whole,

/a.le.ktru.ōn/ seems the most appropriate syllabification and this predicts the Linear B

spelling <(a-re)-ku-tu-ru-(wo)> (Sampson 1985: 69). His argument however contains two

imperfections. First it predicts that none of the consonants in word-final consonant

clusters should be written but there was an example that /wanaks/ ‘king’ was spelled as

<wa-na-ka> not *<wa-na>. Sampson’s explanation for this was that since the general rule

led to the overwhelming majority of stops being written, the only stops that would have

been omitted under the simpler rule are those of the word-final clusters /-ks, kws, -ps/

(Sampson 1985: 69). A second imperfection is that neither Ventris and Chadwick’s

suggestion nor Sampson’s more general reformulation can explain why /-s/ is ignored

when it precedes an obstruent:

 116

(15) a. /sperma/ ‘seed’ = <pe-ma>42

b. /stathmos/ ‘farmstead’ = <ta-to-mo>

c. /ksunstrokwhā/ ‘aggregate’ = <ku-su-to-ro-(q)a>43

Sampson (1985: 69) also suggested a rule that a consonant which is not a stop is

omitted if it occurs after the vowel of its syllable or if it immediately precedes a stop (in

the case of /s/); otherwise all consonants are written with borrowed vowels where

necessary. This fits most cases, but there are few failures such as /ararmotmenā/ ‘fitted

together’ = <a-ra-ro-mo-te-me-na> whose syllabification, /a.rar.mo.tme.nā/, does not

allow the graph <ro>. Consequently, there are three views regarding Linear B spelling

rules:

1) Scribes varied freely as between writing and omitting the first element of /-

rm-/ and comparable clusters (or perhaps some scribes regularly wrote them

while others regularly omitted them);

2) The rule required the first element in such clusters to be written and spellings

such as <pe-ma> for /sperma/ are irregular (or perhaps even just mistakes);

3) The rule required the first element in such clusters to be omitted and

spellings such as <a-ra-ro-mo-te-me-na> for /ararmotmenā/ are just

exceptions.

Sampson is in favor of the third view because this assumption enables him to state

the rule governing the writing of consonants in a relatively elegant way (Sampson 1985:

42
According to Ruijgh’s rule, /sperma/ would be *<pe-ra-ma> (Sampson 1985: 70).
 117

70. A more serious problem for the rule Sampson suggests is that it depends on a set of

principles for syllabification that are themselves open to question. It is very common

when scripts are borrowed for the borrowers to alter the values of some of the elements

inadvertently because they interpret alien sounds in terms of their own sound system.

Less commonly people deliberately choose to use a sign in what they know to be a novel

value that happens to be relatively useful for their own language (Sampson 1985: 72).

This argument would probably explain the reason there are no distinctions between

voiced, voiceless plain, and aspirate stops, despite their importance in Greek phonology.

Other unexpected characteristics in Linear B script: the existence of the optional graphs

for /ha/, /phu/, /ai/, /nwa/, or /pte/, which disturb the general logic of the script (Sampson

1985: 71); or complex syllables of the CCV type that have their own graphs are either of

the form CwV or CjV (Palmer 1963: 36ff)44 may have similar explanations. Indeed,

Sampson (1985: 71) pointed out that these unexpected characteristics are the result of the

fact that Linear B was not created for the purpose of writing Greek but was developed

from an already-existing system of Linear A or of a lost common ancestor-script that had

been developed to transcribe the sounds of a ‘Minoan’ language. According to Palmer’s

argument, the pronunciation of the Mycenaean phoneme conventionally transcribed /z/

would have been a palatalized velar [kj]. Likewise, quoting Sampson’s words analyzing

Palmer’s suggestion, “much of what seems puzzling in the Linear B system would fall

into place if we suppose that the unknown Minoan language was one in which the

43
The syllabification for the last example /ksunstrokwhā/ must be /ksun.stro.kwhā/
44
the exception is <pte>, though Greek /pt/ often developed from an earlier /pj/ so that it is possible that
<pte> might originally have had the phonetic value /pje/ (Sampson 1985: 72).
 118

important manner-distinctions among consonants involved secondary articulations of

palatalization and lip-lounding, rather than voice and aspiration … Minoan would have

been a language in which each plain consonant, for instance /t/, contrasted with a

palatalized counterpart /tj/ and with a labialized counterpart /tw/ -whereas voicing and

aspiration either did not occur at all, or were mere subphonemic ‘noise’ playing no role in

the language and therefore naturally ignored by its script (Sampson 1985: 72)”. Then one

must acknowledge that Linear B and the phonology of Mycenaean Greek do not

completely correspond with each other. Rather the script is ‘incomplete’ so that a pair of

CV-CV word may have several possible readings. For example, the reading of the pair

<pa-te> could be either actual words of Mycenaean Greek: /pătēr/ ‘father’ or /păntĕs/

‘all’; or phonologically possible yet undetermined vocabulary: /băthē/, /phăntĕs/, /pāstēn/,

and so on. This leads to the question of how such an incomplete system could have been

usable in practice (Sampson 1985: 73). One possible answer would be that because

Linear B was used not for general communication but only for very specialized

bureaucratic purpose, such as inventorying goods or listing tenancies, the script would

have contained strong contextual clues to their meanings that alleviate confusion.

5.3.2 Summary and Conclusion

To sum up the Linear B CV writing system, the treatment of consonant phonemes

preceding another consonant or word-finally is as follows:

According to the above rules, in Linear B, when a given consonant does not have

a proceeding vowel, the solution is adding an extra or a dummy vowel or simply omitting

the last consonant. This treatment gives all CCV or (C)VCC consonant clusters CV
 119

cluster or vowel-final endings. Thus, Linear B has two fundamental conventions to write

word-final consonants or consonant clusters: 1) consonant deletion and 2) vowel

insertion. The Japanese verb conjugation system shows that consonant insertion is

common in terms of orthographic analysis. Bricker (1989) shows the Mayan scribes used

the same three conventions in both hieroglyphic texts and colonial documents. The fourth

convention used in Mayan scripts was vowel deletion; and that is not very common in

either Japanese or the Linear B system. However, the Colonial Mayan example of vowel

deleation indicates the strong influence of logo-syllabic writing by assigning syllabic

values to alphabetic signs (Bricker 1989: 45). The examples of vowel deletion for the

hieroglyphic Maya script with synharmonic spelling rules assumes that word-final vowels

did not exist. However, as I demonstrated in the former chapters, such an assumption is

doubtful and in many cases, vowel deletion is a misinterpretation of consonant deletion,

as in Bricker’s (1989: 45) example u muti for umutil ‘his bird, omen’.

The strict consonant-vowel (CV) structure of the Japanese language may not be

totally applicable to Mayan writing, which does not have a strict CV structure at all.

However, the study of Japanese logo-syllabic writing system along with Linear B syllabic

writing system can provide interesting insights into word composition and structure in

relation to orthographic rules.

The examples from Japanese writing systems show that even though a given word

does not fit Japanese syllabic structure, there is a way to transcribe such non-CV words

with CV syllables and that there are two main strategies for transcribing the foreign

borrowed words and sounds in Japanese. One is paragoge and the other is modified

syllables. The rules of paragogization are intuitional but also linguistically explainable.
 120

Modification of syllables is a way to transcribe the sound more accurately but it is still

done within conventional orthographic systems. Those may be relevant to echo-vowel

criteria in Mayan writings. The Linear B writing system suggests that underspelling is the

most frequent solution for consonant cluster and consonant endings, which is also

adopted in Mayan writing. However, neither of them supports the word-final vowel

deletion (C1V1-C2V1 spelling for C1V1C2 word). Thus, both studies support my

hypothesis that the last vowel of a word-final CV syllable in Maya hieroglyphic writing

represents either echo-vowel, a part of grammatical morpheme, paragogic vowel

accounting for word-ending syllabification, or a bridge to an underspelled word-final

consonant, as opposed to both harmonic and disharmonic spelling rules as a solution for

eliminating word-final vowels.

 121

1) _C > _Cu
a. pug [pΛg] > [pa-gɯ
ɯ] > パグ

2) _C (C= t,d) > _Co

a. cut [kΛt] > [ka-t-to] > カット (also rule 6 is applied)
b. stout [staut] > [sɯ
ɯ-ta-ɯ-to] > スタウト
c. bud [bΛd] > [ba-do] > バド

3) _C (C= ʨ, ʥ) > _Ci

a. inch [in ʨ] > [i-n- ʨi] > インチ
b. badge [bæʥ] > [ba-d- ʥi] > バッジ (also rule 6 is applied)

4) _C (C=[ç] /_[i], [φ] /_[ɯ

ɯ], [h] /_[a, e, o]) > _CV1_CV2 (V1=V2)
a. Pfennig [(p)feniç] > [pe-ni-çi] > ペニヒ
b. Popol Vuh [poupoul vu:] > [po-po-lɯ
ɯ vɯ-hɯ
ɯ] > ポポル・ヴフ
c. Al Fatah [æl fætə] > [a-lɯ
ɯ fa-ta-ha] > アル・ファタハ
d. reh [rei] > [le:-he] > レーへ (also rule 7 is applied)
e. Gogh [gox] > [go-h-ho] > ゴッホ (also rule 6 is applied)

5) _Cy > _Ci:

a. copy [kαpi] > [ko-pi:] > コピー

6) _CC_ > _’C

a. look [luk] > [lɯ-k-kɯ
ɯ] > ルック

7) V1V2 (V1=V2) > V:, CV1V2 (V1≠V2 , diphthong) > CV1V2

a. fee [fi:] > [fi:] > フィー
b. ice [ais] > [a-i-sɯ
ɯ] > アイス

Table 5-1. Rule of Japanese paragogization


Conditions
C1C2V1_ {C1=stops: /ph, p, b,
th, t, d, kh, k, g, kwh, kw, gw/,
C2=any consonants}
_C1V1C2C3 {C1&C3=any
consonants, C2=stops: /ph, p,
b, th, t, d, kh, k, g, kwh, kw, gw/}
C1C2V1_ {C1=continuants: /s,
m, n, r, l, w/, C2=sonorants:
/m, n, r, l, w/}
C1C2V1_ {C1=continuants: /s,
m, n, r, l, w/, C2 =stops or /s/}
_C1V1C2 {C1=Continuants: /s,
m, n, r, l, w/}
122
treatment example
C1V1C2V1_
Written by ‘borrowing’ the
/ptelewās/ = <pe-te-re-wa>
next vowel to make up a CV
syllable (making a ‘dummy’
vowel)
_C1V1C2V1
Written with the preceding
vowel. The last consonant is
omitted. The only consonants /wanaks/ = <wa-na-ka>
that can occur word-finally in
Greek are //n, r, s/
(continuants) automatically
follow the rule of omission.
C1V1C2V1_
/tripos/ = <ti-ri-po>
Written with a ‘borrowed’
vowel
_C2V1
/worzōn/ = <wo-zo>
C1 is simply omitted
_C1V1
/wrīnos/ = <wi-ri-no>
C1 is simply omitted
Table 5-2. Linear B Spelling Rules
 123

buluk kutz tzul k’uk’

‘eleven’ ‘turkey’ ‘dog’ ‘quetzal’

[ b ɯ..l ɯ..k ɯ ] [ k ɯ..Q.tz ɯ ] [ ts ɯ..l ɯ ] [ k ɯ..Q.k ɯ ]

ブルク クッツ ツル クック

Figure 5-1. Japanese way of Spelling Maya words (modified from Yasugi 1982: 69)

Figure 5-2. Example of Linear B Script (From Sampson 1985: 73)

 124

Figure 5-3. Linear B Syllabary (From Sampson 1985: 65)

 125

Figure 5-4. Example of Ethiopic script (From Sampson 1985: 66)

b’a ma b’u mu
[T501] [T502] [T21.741v] [T19.741]

Figure 5-5. Example of similar syllables in Maya (Modified from Montgomery with Helmke 2007)
 126

CHAPTER 6

SUMMARY, SIGNIFICANCE, AND CONCLUSION

Mayan linguists, art-historians and epigraphers have been attempting to determine

the spelling rules for ancient Mayan hieroglyphic writing. Although many current

epigraphers accept Wichmann and Lacadena’s disharmonic theories, there are also strong

objections from linguists who have constructed their own theories and hypotheses such as

-V:l hypothesis (Kaufman with Justeson 2007) or echo-vowel rules (Hopkins 1997,

Anderson 2008). However, none of them can explain ancient Mayan spelling rules

comprehensively.

I have conducted a detailed analysis on the Quiriguá hieroglyphic corpus

regarding spelling patterns and word-final vowels. I have found several correlations and

patterns among them. There are two important findings: 1) nouns tend to take a and i

endings in similar frequencies while nearly 70% of verbs end in i; 2) despite the common

belief that hieroglyphic Mayan words usually end with consonants and word-final vowels

are unpronounced, several cases indicate that it is more likely that those word-final

vowels were actually pronounced in order to make grammatical or contextual sense

within the text.

Interestingly enough, modern Mayan languages, such as Mopan Maya and

Ch’orti’, have word-final vowels everywhere. They serve as grammatical morphemes

such as a topic marker, a focus marker, or an intransitive completive marker. For ancient
 127

Maya, Proto-Ch’olan verbs also end with vowels in the following categories: root

transitive completive, incompletive, and imperative; derived transitive completive;

inchoative completive; root intransitive completive (y is a semivowel); and thematic

suffixes with derived intransitive completive (reconstructed only for Eastern Ch’olan and

Proto-Eastern Ch’olan). In contrast, reconstructed glyphic Mayan verbs barely have

vowel endings. As for nouns, they often take -Vl suffixes and /l/ is a weak consonant

which can be underspelled. There are also enclitics and demonstrative pronouns that give

vowel-endings in both proto-Ch’olan and modern Maya languages.

Study of Japanese logo-syllabic writing system along with the Linear B syllabic

writing system can provide interesting insights into the treatment of word-final vowels.

First, orthographically, conjugated Japanese verbs use the form of Kanji-Kana

(LOGOGRAPH-syllable) and the syllable that immediately follows the logograph usually

consists of a word-final consonant of the root and a vowel functioning as a grammatical

morpheme, but morphologically, the root ends with a consonant and only a vowel

functions as a grammatical morpheme. This may suggest a new consideration of phonetic

complements in Mayan hieroglyphic writing. Most epigraphers consider the word-final

syllable in a LOGOGRAPH-syllable compound to be a phonetic complement that

determines the word-final consonant. However, if Mayan hieroglyphic writing records

word-final vowels as topic markers, thematic suffixes, and other grammatical

morphemes, the function of phonetic complements is indicating not only the word-final

consonant that determines the reading of the logograph but also the word-final vowels

that work as grammatical morphemes. Secondly, Japanese writing systems show that

even though a given word does not fit Japanese syllabic structure, there are ways to
 128

transcribe such non-CV words with CV syllables and that there are two main strategies

for transcribing the foreign words and sounds in Japanese. One way to do this is paragoge

and the other is modified syllables. The rules of paragogization are intuitive but also

linguistically explainable (Kubozono 1999b). Modification of syllables is a way to

transcribe the sound more accurately but it is still done within conventional orthographic

systems. Those may be relevant to echo-vowel criteria in Mayan writings. Lastly, the

Linear B writing system suggests that underspelling is the most frequent solution for

consonant cluster and consonant endings, which is also adopted in Mayan writing.

Bricker (1989) shows strong relationships between the hieroglyphic script and the

colonial documents written by the Mayan scripts, such as the Books of Chilam Balam.

Bricker (1989) discusses three main conventions used in Precolumbian scripts that were

adopted into the colonial manuscripts written by the Mayan scribes: 1) consonant

deletion; 2) consonant insertion; and 3) vowel insertion. Linear B systems show

significant similarities in consonant deletion and vowel insertion, while Japanese shows

similar treatments in regard to consonant insertion in orthographic representation of verb

conjugation and vowel insertion by means of paragogization. The colonial Mayan scribes

used a fourth convention, vowel deletion, adopted from Spanish abbreviation

conventions. That indicates the strong influence of logo-syllabic writing by assigning

syllabic values to alphabetic signs (Bricker 1989: 45). The examples of vowel deletion

suggested for hieroglyphic Maya script with synharmonic spelling rules assume word-

final vowels did not exist. However, as I demonstrated in earlier chapters, such an

assumption is doubtful and in many cases, vowel deletion is a misinterpretation of

consonant deletion.
 129

Both Modern Maya and proto-Ch’olan indicate that there are plenty of word-final

vowels in their discourse, such as topic markers, thematic suffixes, and other grammatical

morphemes. Hull (2004b) suggested that Mayan hieroglyphic inscriptions were intended

to be uttered aloud in public. If a text is designed to be uttered, the reading of the text

should be straightforward without hypothesized complex spelling rules that require a

reader to reconstruct the lengthening of a vowel or the insertion of a glottal stop within a

word after the reader read the word-final syllable, and to delete a word-final vowel in the

last syllable. Neither Japanese nor Linear B writing systems support the word-final vowel

deletion (C1V1-C2V1 spelling for C1V1C2 word). Instead, they suggest that paragogic

vowels in relation to echo-vowels, and underspellings are main solutions to transcribe the

word-final consonant with CV syllables.

This study is important for its multi-disciplinary intellectual contributions to the

research field of Maya studies as well as for broader cross-cultural impacts on societies.

This study deals with general anthropological and linguistic questions which are relevant

to cross-cultural research.

First, the proposed research questions are intriguing not only for Mayan

epigraphers and linguists but also for linguistic anthropologists and linguists in general

interested in understanding writing systems. Similarities among Japanese, Linear B and

Mayan writing systems are not mere coincidences, but indicate the nature of logo-syllabic

and syllabic writing systems. As Kaufman (2007) pointed out, word-final vowels do not

refer to the vowel nucleus of the syllable preceding a word-final consonant. Both

Japanese and Linear B examples indicate that (logo-)syllabic writing systems do not work

that way. Interpretations that word-final vowels indicate a preceding vowel nucleus, may
 130

be influenced by English alphabet writing system.

Second, comparative study involves differences and similarities of human

thought. The examination of Precolumbian, colonial, and modern Mayan documents and

language provides interesting examples of ethnography of writing as well as the nature of

the Precolumbian writing system and native Mayan speakers’ intuitive understandings of

their own language.

Third, keen observation and deep understanding of the hieroglyphic corpus and

language systems provides a better understanding of the ancient Maya in general. The

hieroglyphic texts are the evidence of the linkage between the past and the present and a

source of Mayan cultural identity. Exploring questions such as: the content of the

hieroglyphic scritps; whether texts were presented publicly or privately; and the intended

audience, needs to be done in conjuction with archaeological investigation. Epigraphic

studies of the Mayan hieroglyphic corpus have revealed the languages recorded (Houston

et al. 2000, Hruby and Child 2004, Lacadena and Wichmann 2002, Macri and Looper

2000, Mora-Marín 2004b), historical events (Looper 2003, Martin and Grube 2000),

detailed information about Mayan dynasties and political organization (Looper 2003,

Schele and Miller 1986, Schele and Mathews 1998) and connections between modern and

ancient Maya (Bricker 1986, 1989, 1992; Kaufman 1976; Knorozov 1967; Hull 2004b;

MacLeod and Zender 1984). This study, which explores the nature of word-final vowels

in hieroglyphic corpus, like earlier linguistic studies attempts a better understanding of

the ancient Maya culture and people.

Maya hieroglyphic writing is the ancestral heritage and the intellectual property

of the Maya people who still live and speak Mayan languages. With comparative analysis
 131

of Japanese, Ainu, Linear B, and Mayan orthographic conventions and patterns, I came to

the conclusion that word-final vowels represented by CV syllables are not silent but

rather should be pronounced, for they serve as grammatical morphemes or echo-vowels

that were heard easily by native Mayan speakers. Neither harmonic nor disharmonic

spelling rules as a solution for eliminating word-final vowels is necessary, because the

last vowel of a word-final CV syllable in Maya hieroglyphic writing represents either an

echo-vowel, a part of grammatical morpheme, paragogic vowel for word-final

syllabification, or a bridge to an underspelled word-final consonant, and thus should be

pronounced. My study sheds lights on native speakers/writers motivations for structuring

their speech and perceptions of their own languages. My arguments also call closer

attention to how alphabet users might have been affected by their own biases as they

developed harmonic and disharmonic rules. I suggest we look at Mayan hieroglyphic

scripts with more consideration to how native Mayan speakers/writers would read/write

glyphic texts. I hope my study contributes to more public attention and appreciation to the

surviving modern Mayan peoples and cultures as well as to similarities and differences of

languages and writing systems.

 132

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APPENDICES
 163

APPENDIX A: MAYA SYLLABARY

(from Kettunen and Helmke 2005: 49-51)
164
165
 APPENDIX B: JAPANESE SYLLABARY
VOWELS

chokuon ‘straight sound’ youon ‘curved sound’

seion ‘clear (voiceless) sound’

a i u e o (ya) (yu) (yo)
(‘) あ い う え お や ゆ よ
ア イ ウ エ オ ヤ ユ ヨ
ka ki ku ke ko kya kyu kyo
k か き く け こ きゃ きゅ きょ
カ キ ク ケ コ キャ キュ キョ
sa shi su se so sya syu syo
s さ し す せ そ しゃ しゅ しょ
サ シ ス セ ソ シャ シュ ショ
ta chi tsu te to cha chu cho
t た ち つ て と ちゃ ちゅ ちょ
タ チ ツ テ ト チャ チュ チョ
CONSONANT

na ni nu ne no nya nyu nyo

n な に ぬ ね の にゃ にゅ にょ
ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ ニャ ニュ ニョ
ha hi hu he ho hya hyu hyo
h は ひ ふ へ ほ ひゃ ひゅ ひょ
ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ ヒャ ヒュ ヒョ
ma mi mu me mo mya myu myo
m ま み む め も みゃ みゅ みょ
マ ミ ム メ モ ミャ ミュ ミョ
ya yu yo
y や ゆ よ
ヤ ユ ヨ
ra ri ru re ro rya ryu ryo
r ら り る れ ろ りゃ りゅ りょ
ラ リ ル レ ロ リャ リュ リョ

166
 wa (wi) (we) wo
w わ ゐ ゑ を
ワ ヰ ヱ ヲ
N Q
ん っ
ン ッ
dakuon ‘murky (voiceless) sound’
ga gi gu ge go gya gyu gyo
g が ぎ ぐ げ ご ぎゃ ぎゅ ぎょ
ガ ギ グ ゲ ゴ ギャ ギュ ギョ
CONSONANT

za zi/ji zu ze zo zya/ja zyu/ju zyo/jo

z ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ じゃ じゅ じょ
ザ ジ ズ ゼ ゾ ジャ ジュ ジョ
da di du de do dya dyu dyo
d だ ぢ づ で ど ぢゃ ぢゅ ぢょ
ダ ヂ ヅ デ ド ヂャ ヂュ ヂョ
ba bi bu be bo bya byu byo
b ば び ぶ べ ぼ びゃ びゅ びょ
バ ビ ブ ベ ボ ビャ ビュ ビョ
pa pi pu pe po pya pyu pyo
p ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ ぴゃ ぴゅ ぴょ
パ ピ プ ペ ポ ピャ ピュ ピョ
chokuon ‘straight sound’ youon ‘curved sound’

VOWELS

167
 168

APPENDIX C: JAPANESE PHONEMIC INVENTORY

Japanese phonemic inventory goes as follows:

Japanese Phonemic Inventory (Kubozono 1999: 51-63, 66-83)

Consonants
(Denti-) Post
Bilabial Palatal Velar Glottal Place-Less
Alveolar Alveolar
Stops
voiceless p t k ( ʔ)
voiced b d g
Affricates Q
voiceless ts ʨ
voiced dz ʥ
Fricatives
voiceless ф s ɕ (ç) h
voiced z (ʑ )
Flap ɺ
Nasals m n (ŋ) N
Semivowels j ɰ

Vowels

Front Central Back

High i ɯ
Mid e o
Low a

Consonants

Voiceless stops /p, t, k/ are slightly aspirated. Voiced stops /b, g/ sometimes do

not achieve full occlusion and are realized as fricatives or approximants (semivowels). In

many dialects, intervocalic /g/ is realized as [ŋ]. Usually, /t, d, n/ are apical1 and denti-

alveolar. They are alveolo-palatal before /i/ and are alveolar before /u/. /s, z/ are laminal

1
The tongue apex contacts the back of the upper teeth and the front part of the alveolar ridge.
 169

alveolar but before /i/, these sounds become alveolo-palatal [ɕ 2, (d)ʑ]. Japanese does not

have a distinction between /r/ and /l/. Those sounds are merged into /r/ (transcribed as ɺin

above chart), a lateral apical post-alveolar flap. Its articulation is similar to that of voiced

bilabial stop [d] and confusion of /r/ and /d/ often occurs in nursery words and loanwords

(Kubozono 1999: 47). /ɰ/ is a compressed velar and is a non-moraic version3 of the

はつおん
vowel /ɯ/ but not equivalent to IPA [w]4. /N/ is called hatsuon (撥音) and is a moraic

syllabic nasal. Before stops, it becomes homorganic with a given consonant (stop) thus it

is a stop (Rogers 2005: 53). Before fricatives or between vowels, it does not achieve full

occlusion and is recognized as a nasal vowel. Word finally before a pause, it may be

realized as a uvular nasal stop, a bilabial nasal stop, or as a nasal vowel. /h/ is [ç] before
そくおん
/i/ and [ɸ] before /u/ (Kubozono 1999: 78). /Q/ is a choked sound called sokuon (促音).

Phonologically, it is realized as the first half of a geminate (doubled) obstruent but some

considers /Q/ as a simple geminate consonant cluster such as /pp/, /tt/, or /ss/5. /Q/ only

occurs in word-medial position before a stop or /s/ and is homorganic with the following

consonant (Rogers 2005: 53).

2
It also transcribed as [ʃ ] but technically, Japanese[ɕ ] is voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative and
different from IPA [ʃ ] (voiceless postalveolar fricative).
3
Non-moraic means it does not form one mora. If it is moraic, it should be either a vowel or
moraic consonant such as /Q/ or /N/. Here it is consonantal /w/ that forms [wa, (wi), (we), wo]
thus non-moraic (=consonantal). [wi] and [we] are still occasionally used as written forms but are
basically eliminated from modern Japanese.
4
It is pronounced with lip compression rather than rounding.
 170

Based on Kaufman and Norman’s reconstruction (1984: 84-87), the phonemic

inventory of Eastern-Ch’olan is as follows:

Eastern-Ch’olan Phonemic Inventory (Kaufman and Norman 1984: 84-87)

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stops
voiceless *p *t *k *ʔ
voiceless glottalized *t’ *k’
voiced glottalized *b’
Affricates
voiceless *tz *ch
glottalized *tz’ *ch’
Fricatives
voiceless *s *x *j *h
Liquid *l
Nasals *m *n
Semivowels *y *w

Vowels

Front Central Back

High i u

Mid e o
Low a

Proto Eastern Ch’olan distinguished glottal fricative [h] from velar fricative [j].

The contrast between long and short vowels was lost in Ch’olan along with the contrast

between [ə] with [a] (Kaufman and Norman 1984: 84). Ideally, permissible phonemes in

Eastern Ch’olan would be 20 consonants and 5 vowels thus, a potential consonant-vowel

syllabary for Eastern Ch’olan would be able to contain up to 100 (5x20) signs

representing given syllables.

5
Such a difference is probably based on the main syllabic structure (recognition) of Japanese
direct: moraic (standard (eastern) or western) vs. syllabic (southern or northern).
 171

Vowels

Japanese has five vowels /i, ɯ (or ü), e, o, a/. The Japanese high back vowel /ü/ is

centralized as well as “compression rounded” rather than protrusion rounded as [u], or

unrounded as [ɯ] (Kubozono 1999). Except in detailed phonological discussion, it will

henceforth be transliterated as u6. There is a phonemic vowel length distinction: おじさん

つき
[o.ji.sa.n] /ojisaN/ “uncle” vs. おじいさん[o.ji.i.sa.n] /ojiisaN/ ‘grandfather’月[tsu.ki]

つうき
/tsuki/ “moon” vs. 通気[tsu.u.ki] /tsuuki/ ‘airflow’. All vowels are treated as occurring

within one mora. Thus, in the example above, those phonetically long vowels are treated

as a sequence of two identical vowels. For example, ojiisan is /ojiisaN/ not */oji:saN/.

Both Japanese and Eastern Ch’olan have five vowels and therefore the syllable type will

be the same: Ca, Ce, Ci, Co, and Cu (C= any given consonant in a phonemic inventory).

6
Strictly speaking there is no complete transcription for Japanese /ü/ since there is no IPA
symbol for lip compression.
 172

APPENDIX D: LINEAR B PHONEMIC INVENTORY

Linear B is has one of the most systematically studied syllabic writing systems. It

is assumed that the Linear B syllabary was used for the Mycenaean script and it was

adapted for writing an early Greek dialect7(Benett 1996: 126). The reconstructed

phonological inventory of Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Linear B script, is

shown below (for more detailed argument on Mycenaean phonology, please see Sampson

1985: 63-64).

Mycenaean Greek Phonemic Inventory: (Modified from Sampson 1985: 63)

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Labio-Velar Velar
Stops
voiceless aspirated *ph *th *kh *kwh
voiceless unaspirated *p *t *k *kw *ø
w
voiced *b *d *gb *g
Fricatives
voiceless *s *h
voiced *z
Liquid *l
Nasals *m *n
Approximants *(j) *w

Vowels
[Pure] [Diphthongs]
Front Central Back Front Central Back
High ĭ ī ŭ ū

Mid ĕ ē ŏ ō ei eu oi ou
Low ă ā ai au

7
However, Benett (1996: 126) pointed out that these transcriptions are a modern convention thus
correspond exactly only to the shape, and not to any pronunciation or phonemic value of the sign.
 173

VITA

Graduate School
Southern Illinois University

Yuki Tanaka Date of Birth: February 13, 1979

503 North Oakland Avenue, Carbondale, Illinois 62901

835 Kamikawachi, Kanan-cho, Minamikawachi-gun, Osaka, 585-0024, JAPAN

Ibaraki University, Japan

Bachelor of Art, History, March 2002

Special Honors and Awards:

Graduate Teaching Assistantship 2006
Graduate Research Assistantship 2006-2008

Thesis Title:
A Comparative Study of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing and Japanese Orthography in
the Quiriguá Hieroglyphic Corpus

Major Professor: Dr. Charles Andrew Hofling

Publications:
2002 Kodai Nihon no Sousou Girei: Mogari no Tayousei to Hirogari (Funeral
and Mourning Rituals in Ancient Japan: Diversity and Broadening of
Mogari Rite's Meaning), B.A. Thesis, Ibaraki University.