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Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered.
The complex script used to write Mayan languages in pre-Columbian times and known today from engravings at several Maya archaeological sites has been deciphered almost completely. The script is a mix between a logographic and a syllabic system.
The project Text Database and Dictionary of Classic Mayan (abbr. TWKM) promotes research on the writing and language of pre-Hispanic Maya culture.It is housed in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bonn and was established with funding from the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. [1]
The script's corpus of graphemes features a core of syllabic signs which reflect the phonology of the Classic Maya language spoken in the region and at that time, which were also combined or complemented by a larger number of logograms.
The writing system used is very close to the Maya script, using affixal glyphs and Long Count dates, but is read only in one column at a time as is the Zapotec script. It has been suggested that this Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script is the direct predecessor of the Maya script, thus giving the Maya script a non-Maya origin.
Maya codices (sg.: codex) are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. The codices have been named for the cities ...
The de Landa alphabet is the correspondence of Spanish letters and glyphs written in the pre-Columbian Maya script, which the 16th-century bishop of Yucatán, Diego de Landa, recorded as part of his documentation of the Maya civilization.
An Outline Dictionary of Maya Glyphs: With a Concordance and Analysis of Their Relationships is a monograph study of the Maya script by William E. Gates, first published in 1931. The inventory of glyphs used in Gates' analysis was compiled and drawn from the Madrid , Dresden and Paris codices , rather than from monumental inscriptions and stelae .