Re: Michael Coe's Book on Mayan Decipherment
John O'Meara (jomeara@cs_acad_lan.lakeheadu.ca)
23 Aug 1996 12:59:41 GMT
Thanks for your reply. A few comments are interleaved
In article <0000204c+00001f65@msn.com>, napuctun@msn.com (Dr Richard
Luxton) wrote:
> The argument over the exact nature of Mayan writing is by no means
> settled.
While I'm not a Mayanist, the evidence in favour of Mayan hieroglyphics
being a mixed logographic and syllabic system appears compelling.
> David Stuart, for example, has referred to "performance
> literature" which brings back the old discussion on an oral
> component. Likewise Barbara Tedlock's work on the Highland Quiche
> shows that they regard ( at least the day names) as "readable" only
> through complex wordplay and soundplay.
This is interesting, but it seems clear that Mayan hieroglyphics is indeed
a writing system, and hence represents speech in some way or other; it
could then be used in many different ways, including oral performance.
> Likewise Barbara Tedlock's work on the Highland Quiche
> shows that they regard ( at least the day names) as "readable" only
> through complex wordplay and soundplay.
Again there are all sorts of factors which enter into the interpretation
of written materials; since I'm not familiar with the work you cite I
won't try and speculate. But they don't seem to contradict the approach to
decipherment being taken by Mayanists.
>Knorosov's absence in
> discussions on the "American" phoneticism school is also worthy of
> note. He has not endorsed it.
I don't know if he has or not, but his work is clearly the corner stone
for modern decipherment. I hardly think an endorsement is necessary.
>
> Coe's book is indeed marred by a personal attack on Thompson.
> Thompson did miss the value of the phonetic approach until late in
> the day but his ideographical readings and his detailed analysis of
> the system in [1960] and later publications far outweighs this gap.
In my original posting I failed to point out that Coe does give Thompson
credit for the many contributions that he did make to Mayan studies, and I
may have incorrectly left the impression that everything Coe says about
Thompson is negative; such is not the case
> The Maya left their own "readings" of late hieroglyphic materials -
> These are the Books of Chilam Balam - written in Roman script.
> Curiously Coe's book does not dwell on the lack of success Mayan
> decipherers have had in understanding these Roman script texts. We
> are to believe that while scholars can read hieroglyphs they cant
> read Mayan explanations of these even when written in Roman script.
I don't know much about these, but there could be all sorts of reasons why
analysis of these texts needs more work.
**********************************************************
John O'Meara
Native Language Instructors' Program
Faculty of Education
Lakehead University
Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1
CANADA
Phone: 807-343-8054
FAX: 807-346-7746
E-mail: jomeara@cs_acad_lan.lakeheadu.ca
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