THE
Ancient Phonetic Alphabet
OF
YUCATAN.

By D. G. BRINTON, M. D.

New York:
J. SABIN & SONS, No. 84 NASSAU STREET.
1870.

THE
Ancient Phonetic Alphabet
OF
YUCATAN.

Most readers are quite familiar with the fact that a well-developed method of picture writing, or "didactic painting," as it has been appropriately named, prevailed through Mexico and Central America for centuries before the conquest. But that, in the latter country, there was a true phonetic alphabet, is one of the more recent discoveries of American archæology, and certainly one of the most interesting, as it promises to restore to us the records of the most cultivated nation of ancient America for a number of centuries previous to the advent of the white man.

It is well-known that the forests of Yucatan conceal the ruins of cities and palaces built of stones covered with inscribed characters. All travelers who had seen these characters were convinced that they were intended to perpetuate ideas, but the key seemed to be irrevocably lost. Fortunately, within the last few years (to be exact, in December, 1863), a diligent antiquarian, the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, unearthed in a library in Madrid—that of the Royal Academy of History—a copy of an unpublished description of Yucatan composed by Diego de Landa, the first bishop of the country. In this was contained the phonetic alphabet employed by the aboriginal Mayas, with a tolerably full, but an intolerably obscure, explanation of their mode of using it. As De Landa's words are so important, and also not a little difficult to comprehend, we cannot do better than transcribe them exactly as they appear in the copy of his work published at Paris, in 1864.

He premises his remarks by saying that the natives used certain characters or letters with which they wrote in books their ancient histories and sciences, and by means of these letters, and figures, and certain signs in the figures, they could understand and teach from these manuscripts. The missionaries found very many of them, all of which, the good bishop informs us, proved on examination to contain more lies and superstitions, and were consequently burned, which pained the natives in the most marvelous manner (lo qual a maravilla sentian, y les dava pena).

He then continues:—

"De sus letras porné aqui un a, b, c, que no permite su pesadumbre mas, porque usan para todas las aspiraciones de las letras de un caracter, y despues, al puntar de las partes otro, y assi viene a hazer in infinitum, como se podra ver en el siguiente exemplo. Lé quière dezir laço y caçar con el; para escrivirle con sus caracteres, haviendolos nosotros hecho entender que son dos letras, lo escrivian ellos con tres, poniendo a la aspiracion de la l la vocal é, que antes de si trae, y en esto no hierran, aunque usense, si quisieron ellos de su curiosidad. Exemplo:—