The Maya Chronicles | Page 7

which he has no proprietorship. Material used is indicated by this ending, as xanil na, a house of straw (xan, straw, na, house).
Compound words are frequent, but except occasional syncope, the members of the compound undergo no change. There is little resembling the incapsulation (emboitement) that one sees in most American languages. Thus, midnight, chumucakab, is merely a union of chumuc, middle, and akab, night; dawn, ahalcab, is ahal, to awaken, cab, the world.
While from the above brief sketch it will be seen that the Maya is free from many of the difficulties which present themselves in most American tongues, it is by no means devoid of others.
In its phonetics, it possesses six elements which to the Spaniards were new. They are represented by the signs:
c[=h], k, pp, t[=h], tz, [c].
Of these the c[=h] resembles dch, pronounced forcibly; the [c] is as dz; the pp is a forcible double p; and in the t[=h] the two letters are to be pronounced separately and forcibly. There remains the k which is the most difficult of all. It is a sort of palato-guttural, the only one in the language, and its sound can only be acquired by long practice.
The particles are very numerous, and make up the life of the language. By them are expressed the relations of space and time, and all the finer shades of meaning. Probably no one not to the manor born could render correctly their full force. Buenaventura, in his Grammar, enumerates sixteen different significations of the particle il.[35-1]
The elliptical and obscure style adopted by most native writers, partly from ignorance of the art of composition, partly because they imitated the mystery in expression affected by their priests, forms a serious obstacle even to those fairly acquainted with the current language. Moreover, the older manuscripts contain both words and forms unfamiliar to a cultivated Yucatecan of to-day.
I must, however, not omit to contradict formally an assertion made by the traveler Waldeck, and often repeated, that the language has undergone such extensive changes that what was written a century ago is unintelligible to a native of to-day. So far is this from the truth that, except for a few obsolete words, the narrative of the Conquest, written more than three hundred years ago, by the chief Pech, which I print in this volume, could be read without much difficulty by any educated native.
Again, as in all languages largely monosyllabic, there are many significations attached to one word, and these often widely different. Thus kab means, a hand; a handle; a branch; sap; an offence; while cab means the world; a country; strength; honey; a hive; sting of an insect; juice of a plant; and, in composition, promptness. It will be readily understood that cases will occur where the context leaves it doubtful which of these meanings is to be chosen.
These homonyms and paronyms, as they are called by grammarians, offer a fine field for sciolists in philology, wherein to discover analogies between the Maya and other tongues, and they have been vigorously culled out for that purpose. All such efforts are inconsistent with correct methods in linguistics. The folly of the procedure may be illustrated by comparing the English and the Maya. I suppose no one will pretend that these languages, at any rate in their present modern forms, are related. Yet the following are but a few of the many verbal similarities that could be pointed out:--
MAYA. ENGLISH. bateel, battle. c[=h]ab, to grab, to take. hol, hole. hun, one. lum, loam. pol, poll (head). potum, a pot. pul, to pull, carry. tun, stone.
So with the Latin we could find such similarities as volah=volo, [c]a=dare, etc.
In fact, no relationship of the Maya linguistic group to any other has been discovered. It contains a number of words borrowed from the Aztec (Nahuatl); and the latter in turn presents many undoubtedly borrowed from the Maya dialects. But this only goes to show that these two great families had long and close relations; and that we already know, from their history, traditions and geographical positions.
§ 6. The Numeral System.
The Mayas had a mathematical turn, and possessed a developed system of numeration. It counted by units and scores; in other words, it was a vigesimal system. The cardinal numbers were:--
Hun, one. Ca, two. Ox, three. Can, four. Ho, five. Uac, six. Uuc, seven. Uaxac, eight. Bolon, nine. Lahun, ten. Buluc, eleven. Lahca, twelve. Oxlahun, thirteen. Canlahun, fourteen. Holhun, fifteen. Uaclahun, sixteen. Uuclahun, seventeen. Uaxaclahun, eighteen. Bolonlahun, nineteen. Hunkal, twenty.
The composition of these numerals from twelve to nineteen inclusive is easily seen. Lahun is apparently a compound of lah hun (sc. uinic), "it finishes one (man);" that is, in counting on the fingers. Lah means the end, to end, and also the whole of anything. Kal, a score, is literally a fastening together,