Talk:Maya script

message: The biggest obstacle to decipherment was the scholar JJ. Thompson, who torpedoed all efforts to find phonetic correspondences in the script.  His death in 1975 allowed researchers to pursue their ideas without fear of sacrificing their careers. Cbdorsett 15:09, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been very often repeated, but IMO is too much of an oversimplification. Other factors include cold war politics, and the fact that some of the early attempts at phonetic decypherment were hardly as obviously useful at the time as they the approach would prove to be over time. J. Eric S. Thompson was certainly caustic in defending his notions in his declining years, but "sacrificing their careers" seems to me too harsh; from what I'm aware of, disagreeing with Thompson seemed more likely to provoke a snarky review from him than losing a position. Or are their specific examples of the later? I liked the attitude one professor who had had a corrispondance with Thompson over some points in the codices who said something like "Wow, I feel honored to corrispond with the greatest living Mayanist. Even better, we have a disagreement -- and I know I'm right!"  Cheers, -- Infrogmation 18:50, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Thompson

message: The article currently contains
: The Maya may seem to have inherited some elements, and likely the entire basis, of their ancient writing system from the Olmecs.
I think this is overstating the case for the particulars of writing. Yes, the Maya considered the Olmecs to be the source of much of their culture - but as far as I've been able to discern, they didn't develop writing. To the contrary, The Code of Kings (Schele and Mathews, 1998) says
: Early kings, called /ahaw/, also began to portray themselves on stone mountains erected in the plazas at the feet of the pyramid-mountains. During the last third of the Preclassic period, the idea of writing developed as a way of describing who was shown on these monuments, as well as when and where the actions occured. This was the beginning of history for the Maya. (pp 17-18)
--moof 07:28, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence of the Olmecs overstated? 

message: At least 90% of the article is about the "history of Maya decipherment" or the fact that the ability to read it was lost. There are virtually no details on Maya writing other than saying "it's essentialy a logosyllabic system". There isn't even a clear image of a single logograph!
While I don't insist on a detailed exposition on the entire writing system (it's probably a wee bit too complex to be addressed in a top-level article like this) I would expect to see some basic details and perhaps a simple syllabary. After reading the article I don't even know if it's written left-to-right, up-to-down, etc. The article on Egyptian hieroglyphics is far more informative, and takes the more useful approach of explaining the writing system instead of going into a discourse on the people who deciphered it.
Unfortunately, the majority of this article's content is practically useless (could be shortened to "Madness, confusion, and academia reign supreme in the land of the Mayanists") unless one is already familiar with the people and events involved. 
*What is the "old school" and where did it come from?
*Why was there ongoing conflict over the course of several decades?
*Did Thompson hold back the 1950s decipherment efforts, and if so, why?
*Why did it take so long to decipher the writing given the existence of a written syllabary? Why was it far more difficult to decipher than Egyptian hieroglyphics? Syllabic writing systems are typically unambiguous, so what's so funky about this one?
*Is it true that literally nothing could be read before the "1970s breakthrough"?
*What about efforts pre-Knorosov?
*Why was "a historically-oriented approach" (whatever that is) essential, as opposed to simply trying to decipher the text using Knorosov's ideas? 
*"Although it was now clear what was on many Maya inscriptions, they still could not literally be read." Why couldn't they be read? What are the monument inscriptions actually about?
I can't answer any of these questions. I only know enough about the subject to be able to say that the  decipherment history as given here is peculiarly slanted, and there are many missing details and relevant facts. 12.103.251.203 17:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, I think you have some good points. About 2/3rds of the article at present looks like a fair start for an article "History of the decypherment of Maya hieroglyphics".  The article has much room for improvement. -- Infrogmation 22:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I barely started a rewrite, and will contitue later. While we're at it, why not change the title? "Maya hieroglyphics" sounds illiterate. kwami 03:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Okay, not very complete, but now at least it's more than a stub. I'm also planning on moving the article to "Maya script", pending feedback. "Maya writing system" and "Maya hieroglyph" would also be acceptable, though of course they aren't hieroglyphs, so the latter is iffy. kwami 08:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, the reason this article contained a disproportionate coverage on the decipherment process is not because of sole familiarity with popular accounts, but the result of the labours of a particular editor who was personally acquainted with a few of the scholars involved, such as Schele. This editor greatly expanded upon the topic a few months ago now, but the description of the writing system itself has indeed lagged behind. This inattention is due not so much to purposeful neglect or disdain, but rather more a matter of a smaller number of interested editors working through a larger number of related articles- remember that unlike other published works the state of a wikipedia article at any given moment is an imperfect draft, and rarely represents all that the community may wish to say on the matter. I'm sure that this particular article has been on the "to do" list for a few of us here, and it's encouraging to now see Kwami's start on working this into the shape it deserves.--cjllw | TALK 02:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: an article about the Maya script is also necessarily much more an article about decipherment than for most other scripts, simply because the decipherment is very recent and ongoing. You can buy primers in Egyptian hieroglyphics in museum shops, but in this case, I suppose we are very much looking at emerging knowledge. dab (ᛏ) 18:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: my two cents: part of the problem is that the knowledge of the language and that of the script are inexorably intertwined, and there's far from a complete understanding of either. I believe that most of the basic syllabary is established, but there's all sorts of logographic and place-indicator glyphs and who knows what else that are part of things, too. Egyptian hieroglyphs, in comparison, are a relatively small, known, and complete set.  --moof 19:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not sure that's an accurate characterization, moof; while I admit that I too am one of those people who have read "Breaking the Maya Code" (and some other stuff I've found on the web and elsewhere), it seems to me that the claims of 80% legibility for Maya writing is pretty significant. Maybe not as complete as what has been done for Ancient Egyptian, but it seems that a considerable chunk of the inscriptions can be read now... (by the way, I added that little diagram of reading direction, feedback welcome.) babbage 07:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ok... so, like, what about Maya hieroglyphics? 

message: I'm deleting the Ancient Egyptian banner, as this article is not part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt. Evertype 08:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very true.Maunus 09:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like the bot enlisted to add that banner to talk pages for that project is getting a little carried away, and it was presumably mistaken. The banner's been removed now.--cjllw | TALK 09:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It also flagged Mesoamerican writing systems. It seems to trigger on the word Hieroglyph, I've contacted the Botmaster.Maunus 09:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Egypt

message: Just a stranger in these parts, and not sure how (if I indeed can) revert.  I assume the vandalism is due to this being linked to a featured article, and not some of the earlier stuff on the talk page.  I wish someone would encyclopedia on things I don't know so I can read them.Stevebritgimp 17:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for catching and fixing the vandalism left a couple minutes before. Check the article history for older versions. That particular vandal already had two warnings so I gave them a block-- but yes, vandalism can pop up anywhere, especially in pages linked from the main page. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for more info. Thanks again. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 17:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: As a note, there's a shot of some painted hieroglyphs (And, if anyone ever wants to fix my egregious spelling error, please feel free) that I saw when I was at Ekbalam last year.  I noticed all the writing in this article is of the carved variety, so maybe this would be useful.  Elijahmeeks 01:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that, and agree that more imgs of painted rather than inscribed glyphs would be useful. Pity that this isn't an up-close shot of the glyphs themselves, but it may have to do if there are no others.--cjllw | TALK 02:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I've moved the file to Commons : thumb. -sche (talk) 07:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Ek'Balam Hieroglyphs

message: What is the evidence that supports that the maya script "may" have been used to write languages other than Yukatek o Ch'olan? Could you provide a source?
JP —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jppira (talk • contribs) 04:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are texts in Tzeltalan found at Toniná, Chontal from Itzimté and possibly Itza' in the Madrid Codex.. see:
*  page 12. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guatemala mayan languages 

message: I've taken out (pending further discussion) the recently added passages that characterise Knorosov as playing the major role in the decipherment. This is what was added:
The major role in deciphering mayan hieroglyphic writing was played by Yuri Knorosov.Yuri Knorosov at Britannica In 1952 he published a paper "Ancient Writing of Central America" arguing that the so-called "de Landa alphabet" contained in Bishop Diego de Landa's manuscript Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán was actually made of syllabic, rather than alphabetic symbols. He further improved his decipherment technique in his 1963 monograph "The Writing of the Maya Indians"Yuri Knorosov and published translations of mayan manuscripts in his 1975 work "Maya Hieroglyphic Manuscripts".
This characterisation is not backed up by the provided reference (this Britannica online article). That EB article actually says that he "played a major role in the decipherment" (emphasis added), quite a different thing altogether. It is not in dispute that Knorosov made highly significant contributions, or that his methodological insights in the 1950s eventually and seminally paved the way to decipherment success. I think the article already gives him credit for this, though of course more detail could be added. However, the actual (and still ongoing) process of decipherment turned out to be a much more collaborative venture, and was far from being a 'one-man show'. Proskouriakoff's insight that the texts referred to historical figures and her analyses of the corresponding glyphic ordering are likewise described as instrumental and "revolutionary", even by sources such as Coe that champion Knorosov's role. Other authors writing on the topic, like George Stuart, also make a point of crediting Proskouriakoff and others with major breakthroughs. I think that the original text, noting that the decipherment's eventual success stems from a combination of factors, is more accurate.
As an aside, the Britannica article is rather generic, and I don't think it's all that useful as a source. Numerous other readily available and more specialist sources provide better and detailed info, IMHO.--cjllw ʘ TALK 03:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then let's say "a", but the article as it stands doesn't provide any acknowledgement of Knorosov's contribution into the decipherment. As if he wrote only one "supposing" work and everything else was done by other contributors. So, please, don't remove references to his 1963 and 1975 works and reworded now reference to Britannica. And please don't remove requests of inline citations, there are too few such citations in the article.86.100.231.115 16:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Knorosov's role 

message: I've asked for peer review for rongorongo, and I'd appreciate the input from anyone here. Knorozov's worked on both! We've gotten rid of (most of?) the kookery, and hopefully it's now close to being a worthy article.
Thanks, kwami (talk) 09:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure kwami, will try to have a look in the next day or two. --cjllw ʘ TALK 10:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review for rongorongo 

message: I note a few references to "Japanese writing" and "Japanese kanji," however is this appropriate, seeing as Japanese kanji are none other than characters imported from China? In fact, without Chinese characters the Japanese wouldn't have a writing system, seeing as the meaningless syllabic kana are but over-simplified Chinese hanzi. Chinese characters themselves have different usages, meanings and pronunciations even within China, so I don't think the credit of a writing system with various pronunciations etc. should be given to that of Japanese writing. Credit where it's due: Chinese characters and their usage predates Japanese writing.KogeJoe (talk) 05:43, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We're talking about the system, not the history. We don't know that the Maya invented writing either. kwami (talk) 07:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Yes, it is the "system" which resembles modern Japanese.  The use of both logographic and phonetic graphemes is salient, as is the variation in the use of okurigana. For that matter, one might also consider the use of special "left-hand mouth" characters in colloquial written Cantonese as another example of how logograms and phonetic elements are combined. Q'eqchi7 (talk) 15:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese Kanji? 

message: I find that there is in the page a theme regarding the contention between a purported old and new school of thought about decipherment; it all seems rather irreleveant - what matters is the script itself, rather than the history of how it came to be understood - certainly it merits a paragraph or so, but as it is, it's the main body of the page.  It also feels very POV, the 'evil old school' vs the 'wonderful new school'.
Toby Douglass (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I'd like to add the Template:POV_section to this section, if there's no objections. I'm also noticing that the section heavily sources only one work (Coe's Breaking the Maya Code, which is listed twice in bibliography). The whole section needs NPOV cleanup. 66.158.49.49 (talk) 19:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too much POV history on decipherment 

message: The list of researchers is pretty pointless. This is an article about the script, not about the club. If you are not in the text or in the bibliography, too bad for you.77.162.130.139 (talk) 23:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It claims it lists 'current leaders' in the field, yet has 2 deceased researchers. Below, it claims 'many more' researchers are apparently research leaders. There is no indication what the list is based on, and nothing in the bibliography gives a clue either. I am going to remove the list, and kindly invite editors intimate with the subject to come up with criteria for inclusion before redoing the list. Regards, Pim Rijkee (talk) 03:21, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Join the club! 

message: Regarding W's Mesoamerican guidelines, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MESO/G", let me say a bit more about using "Mayan" to talk about language and "Maya" to talk about everything else.  The script we are talking about here is certainly part of Mayan language.  To underscore my point, please consider these examples:
:(1) We are currently uncertain about which languages and dialects the Mayan script may have been used to write; however, Yucatecan and Cholan dialects were certainly among them. If only we could go back in time and ask those Mayan writers in person!
:
:(2) School teachers in Punta Gorda must sometimes teach English composition to Creole, Q'eqchi', and Mopan students in the same classroom. The Maya writers evidence error patterns significantly different from those of the Creole writers.
:
In other words, when we are talking about a script, a text, or any writing which is clearly related to some Mayan language, then we should use phrases such as "Mayan script", "Mayan text", and "Mayan writing".  Of course, if the writing is not related to Mayan language per se, then phrases such as "Maya writing" or "Maya text" would be appropriate.
Q'eqchi7 (talk) 15:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's try to be consistent about Maya/Mayan 

message: I found the section on emblem glyphs in general to be aimed towards Mayanist researchers, given the focus on competing theories on the glyphs instead of what we now believe the glyphs to mean. Therefore, I added a Template:Technical on the section. 
Also, its example and the one in History are really confusing, which I think is part of the technical writing displayed in the Emblem Glyph section. 
Why spread out the "Boston lord" analogy through several sentences, and then drop it without explaining how this example could be structured or written? Does it matter to my understanding of the meaning/usage of this glyph that it's a misnomer from earlier scholarship--and if not, why dedicate the last two sentences to this? How is knowing that an emblem glyph isn't really a glyph something that so many people would know that it's worthy of an "of course"? 
I simply cannot parse this sentence. I'm sure it makes sense to someone, but I am not one of them. Could someone instead use an actual example of something the scribe wrote, what Landa said it means, and what it really means?
A garbage person (talk) 18:23, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technical section and confusing examples 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Yuri Knorozov in the thesis argued that Maya savages had phonetic writing and the state. Thus, he refuted Engels. Nevertheless, in the USSR he immediately became a habilized doctor. And here is what Topson wrote in a letter to Michael D. Coe: "... and the witches flying on wild cats on the midnight sky on the orders of Yuri ... poor sexually hungry Tanya (Tatiana Proskouriakoff) looking for a prophet from the once holy Russia who would drive her to Chekhov's bliss...":) 1 Is it criticism of Marxism? МетаСкептик12 (talk) 15:59, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Knorozov, Thompson and "Marxism" 

message: It is possible, but not certain, that these conflicting readings arose as the script was adapted to new languages (similar to Japanese kanji and Assyro-Babylonian and Hittite cuneiform).[weasel words]
I don't understand why this is flagged as weasel words. If there's a weasel in there, it's weasel knowledge and not weasel words. 
This is the exact situation of underpowered studies everywhere: some result didn't quite clear the p=0.05 bar, but you suspect that a larger study might, if the study were to be repeated with greater statistical power. You have a degree of tantalizing positive evidence, but as yet you lack the power (archeological riches) to accord the magical scientific halo of a claimed result. 
It is possible, but not certain,Limited archeological evidence hints that these conflicting readings arose as the script was adapted to new languages (similar to Japanese kanji and Assyro-Babylonian and Hittite cuneiform), but the matter is not yet decided.
I don't think that's anyall that much better, stylistically, and if even this doesn't solve the problem, the weasel word annotation is basically non-falsifiable until the science advances (in which case, as I see it, the "weasel word" annotation is the only weasel wordage in evidence here). 
Of course, it's always possible that the degree of lingering uncertainty is factually misrepresented here. But this would not be my first assumption in a field of study renowned for not exactly drowning in artefactual powers of reconstruction. — MaxEnt 13:25, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason I didn't take my proposed change seriously is that it just cleverly dodges the issue with an implicit passive voice: evidence, in real life, does not walk around the lab whispering into people's ears. — MaxEnt 13:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weasel knowledge 

message: Coe 1992 is used to support that Mayan are the only to develop a complete writing system and that Olmec influence is overstated. Since then, there have been discoveries supporting an indepedent Olmec script (see here) and new research about Olmec scripts being the basis of Mayan script, here. I think in light of this the history section should be reworked
--Tasimnal (talk) 19:50, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  obsolete, nearly thirty year old sources on history of maya script 

message: 'Maya writing was mistakenly called "hieroglyphics" or hieroglyphs by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, although the two systems are unrelated.'
Who says that 'hieroglyphs' was or is supposed to mean something genetically related to Egyptian hieroglyphs? Anatolian hieroglyphs aren't genetically related to them either. There are real and obvious typological similarities between the Maya script and the Egyptian script - both in their appearance, since they resemble pictures of real-world objects, and in their real principles, since they are partly logographic; and the co-occurrence of these two features is not accidental. 'Hieroglyph' can be defined as such a script, and then there is nothing 'mistaken' with speaking of Maya hieroglyphs. Chinese characters are called hieroglyphs in many languages, too, albeit not in English. --95.42.19.211 (talk) 21:28, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistakenly called hieroglyphs? 

message: I feel the decipherment section of the article may have some content that is not neutral and/or does not have an encyclopedic tone. The most egregious examples of this would be
First, the part describing how, after the partial-decipherment of the script, the Maya were revealed to be similar to other societies. In my opinion, this part may be too poetic for Wikipedia, as well as being somewhat non-NPOV by calling the Thompson point of view "old". Also, it did not have an inline citation. Here is the quote:
"They stood revealed as a people with a history like that of all other human societies: full of wars, dynastic struggles, shifting political alliances, complex religious and artistic systems, expressions of personal property and ownership and the like. Moreover, the new interpretation, as the exhibition demonstrated, made sense out of many works of art whose meaning had been unclear and showed how the material culture of the Maya represented a fully integrated cultural system and world-view. Gone was the old Thompson view of the Maya as peaceable astronomers without conflict or other attributes characteristic of most human societies."
''
Second, The specific language used to describe the efforts of the supporters of the old view to discredit the new attempts at decipherment. Here is the full sentence:
"However, three years later, in 1989, supporters who continued to resist the modern decipherment interpretation launched a final counter-assault."
I feel the word "counter-assault" is too strong to be used here.
So, if the people reading this agree this is a violation of NPOV, I think it should be changed.
90.139.88.55 (talk) 16:06, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of NPOV and encyclopedic tone in section on decipherment 

message: What if the b-series was p' all along? I am a Green Bee (talk) 14:08, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  p' 

message: I replaced the expired link on the first reference with an academic paper I found on google scholar. Here's the MLA: Saturno, William A., David Stuart, and Boris Beltrán. "Early Maya Writing at San Bartolo, Guatemala." Science 311.5765 (2006): 1281-1283
Should I include any more of that info in the reference, or is it good as is for now? Etippins (talk) 19:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Reference