Mesoamerican writing systems

Ancient Mesoamerica had several writing systems, the only true pre-Columbian writing in the New World. Mayan hieroglyphic writing (by 400 bce to 1600 ce) is the best known. It is logographic (i.e., uses a letter, symbol, or sign to represent an entire word), having signs that represent syllables. In addition to logographic signs, it uses rebus signs, where something easier to depict could be employed to signal similar-sounding words or morphemes that would be more difficult to represent graphically, as for example an “eye” to represent English “I.” Mayan roots are mostly monosyllabic, of the shape CVC (where C = consonant, V = vowel). Phonetic complements arose from roots where the final consonant was “weak” (h or glottal stop, sometimes also w or y), where the weak final consonant was ignored in reading, gave rise to phonetic signs called phonetic complements, or “syllabic signs.” These elements could be used in combination with logograms, helping to clarify ambiguous signs, thus adding phonological content to the purely semantic. For example, the logogram for b’ahlam ‘jaguar’ could be written with no phonetic complements, or the ‘jaguar’ logogram could appear with the phonetic complement ma beneath it, representing the last consonant of b’ahlam, or a combination of the syllabic signs alone, ba + la + ma, could be used to spell out b’ahlam more or less phonetically. The grammar of the language represented in Maya hieroglyphic writing is well understood; it matches that of Cholan languages.

The decipherment of the Epi-Olmec (Isthmian) writing system (300 bce–600 ce) is one of the major intellectual achievements of modern times; it was first reported by John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman in Science in 1993. The keys to its decipherment were the hypothesis that the text represents a Mixe-Zoquean language; the discovery of La Mojarra stela (1986)—a stela with 465 glyphs in a writing unlike the Mayan, Zapotec, Mixtec, or Aztec scripts, although it used the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar (for further discussion of this type of calendar, see calendar: The Americas)—complemented with other inscriptions; the structural (“grammatical”) analysis of the glyph text; and the explanation of these “grammatical” structures in terms of reconstructed Proto-Mixe-Zoquean grammar.

Three other Mesoamerican writing systems are Zapotec (c. 500 bce to 1000 ce), Mixteca (Mixteca-Puebla, 1200 to 1600 ce), and Aztec (c. 1400 to 1600 ce).

Mesoamerican linguistic prehistory

Linguistic prehistory correlates findings from historical linguistics with information from archaeology, ethnohistory, human genetics, and ethnography to attempt to obtain a clearer picture of the past. Some of the broader hypotheses involving Mesoamerican linguistic prehistory follow.

The linguistic evidence shows that most major Mesoamerican groups were agriculturalists before the breakup of the protolanguage representing each language family. (See also origins of agriculture.) Speakers of Proto-Mayan, Proto-Mixe-Zoquean, Proto-Mixtecan, and Proto-Zapotecan, for example, were successful agriculturalists and had a full complement of Mesoamerican cultigens, including the maize complex, beans, and squash. The Xinkan speakers, however, did not become agriculturalists until they obtained agriculture from their Mayan neighbours; nearly all Xinkan terms for cultigens are loanwords from Mayan languages.

Linguistic evidence has contributed to the ethnic identity of the archaeological Olmecs: they spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language. The Olmecs produced the earliest complex civilization in Mesoamerica (c. 1200–400 bce), and it was located mainly in the same area where Mixe-Zoquean languages are found. Olmec culture had a great impact on the languages and cultures of the region. The identification of the Olmecs as Mixe-Zoquean-speaking is supported by the many loanwords from Mixe-Zoquean languages found far and wide among other languages of Mesoamerica and beyond. Several of these loans are of significant cultural content, including many terms for things shared among Mesoamerican cultures that are held to define the Mesoamerican culture area—cultures without the traits would not belong to Mesoamerica. That quality indicates that they had a culture important enough to contribute loanwords on an extensive scale in the formation of the culture area. Some terms for cultivated plants that were widely borrowed from Mixe-Zoquean by other Mesoamerican languages are ‘cacao,’ ‘squash,’ ‘sweet potato,’ ‘incense,’ ‘gourd,’ ‘gourd bowl,’ ‘bottle gourd,’ and ‘tomato’; in fact, Proto-Mixe-Zoquean *kakaw(a) ‘cacao’ is ultimately the source of English cacao and cocoa, borrowed from Mixe-Zoquean into Nahuatl, from Nahuatl into Spanish, and from Spanish to English. Mixe-Zoquean speakers were the inventors of the Mesoamerican calendar, and there are Mixe-Zoquean influences in the early development of Mayan hieroglyphic writing.

The principal bearers of Classic Lowland Maya culture (300–900 ce) were members of the Cholan subgroup of the Mayan family, later joined by Yucatecans. Speakers of Cholan were the most important of these, and Cholan was the most important language in the development of Maya hieroglyphic writing. The K’ichean language groups expanded into eastern and southern Guatemala quite late, after 1200 ce. The homeland of Proto-Mayan is in the Cuchumatanes Mountains of western Guatemala, around Soloma in the department of Huehuetenango, where speakers exploited both highland and lowland ecological zones. The reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Mayan reveals a culture characterized by: domestic animals, such as the male turkey and dog; cultigens, including avocado, chile, cacao, chicozapote (sapodilla), anona (cherimoya), achiote (bixa), squash (two species), sweet potato, bean, tomato, sweet manioc (cassava), pineapple, breadnut, maize; words in the maize complex, including tortilla, ear of corn, corn leaf, green corn, to plant, to pick, weeding, pinole (ground parched corn), to shell corn, corn dough, grind corn, grind, metate (grindstone); material culture items, including obsidian, salt, small dish or bowl, axe, bench; cloth, weave, spindle whorl, cotton, cottonseed, cotton cloth, century plant (maguey), thread, sew, pants, net bag, hammock, sandal; commerce, including buy, sell, pay, do business or augment, to loan, debt, gift, exchange, service or tax; ritual and religion, including incense, evil spirit or witch, alter ego (animal spirit companion), sacred, mirror or glass, Moon and month, drum, cigar, tobacco (used for ritual), bead, write or draw, paper, paint; cedar (composed of parts meaning the equivalent of ‘holy-tree’); and social organization, including lord and owner, woven mat (sign of authority), poor or orphan, slave or slavery, and work or tribute or tax.

The Proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland appears to have been in what are now Arizona and northern Mexico, possibly extending also into southern California. Southern Uto-Aztecan spread into the northern Middle American zone, in Mexico, and the Aztecan (Nahuan) group eventually made it into Mesoamerica. Aztecan (Nahuan) languages, with Nahuatl as their best-known representative, underwent extensive structural and lexical changes upon entering Mesoamerica, which make this branch fit structurally into the Mesoamerican linguistic area but leave it significantly different in these respects from its Uto-Aztecan relatives to the north. Speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan were not agriculturalists. No terms for any cultivated plants or agricultural techniques can be reconstructed in Proto-Uto-Aztecan; very few can be reconstructed in Proto-Southern Uto-Aztecan. The linguistic evidence does not sustain the hypothesis that Proto-Uto-Aztecan speakers practiced agriculture and spread from Mesoamerica northward.

Teotihuacán (200 bce to 650 ce)—sometimes likened to Rome for its size and influence in Mesoamerica—was not built by Aztecan (Nahuan) speakers, disproving a theory often favoured by archaeologists who see cultural continuity to later Toltecs and Aztecs. The arrival of Nahuan speakers coincides more closely with the fall of Teotihuacán than with its rise. Totonacan speakers and Mixe-Zoquean speakers are the strongest candidates for builders of Teotihuacán and bearers of Teotihuacán culture. Each of these hypotheses bears further investigation. There are a number of Totonacan loans in other languages of Mesoamerica, some of strong cultural significance, but their number is not as large as might be expected, given the dominance of Teotihuacán. Other languages of the region, Otomí, Mixtec and Popoloca, and Mazatec, have contributed no loans of significance to other languages of Mesoamerica and for that reason alone can be eliminated as candidates. Aztec traditions reported that Totonacs built the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon at Teotihuacán, and Totonac has contributed some significant loans to other languages.

Toltec and Aztec culture was borne by Aztecan (Nahuan) speakers. Aztecan speakers had no impact in Mesoamerica until the Terminal Classic Period (after 800 ce).

The Pipil (Aztecan branch, Uto-Aztecan family) of Central America left central Mexico about 800 ce, migrating through what are now Veracruz state and Soconusco, Mexico, and eventually to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

Xinkan territory once included all of eastern Guatemala below the Motagua River. Many place-names in this region have Xinkan etymologies. As mentioned, the Xinkan speakers were not agriculturalists until they obtained agriculture from their Mayan neighbours. Xinkan languages borrowed almost all their terms for cultigens from Mayan languages