THE WRITING AND RECORDS OF THE ANCIENT MAYAS.[215]
One of the ablest living ethnologists has classified the means of recording knowledge under two general headings—Thought-writing and Sound-writing.[216] The former is again divided into two forms, the first and earliest of which is by pictures, the second by picture-writing.
The superiority of picture-writing over the mere depicting of an occurrence is that it analyzes the thought and expresses separately its component parts, whereas the picture presents it as a whole. The representations familiar among the North American Indians are usually only pictures, while most of the records of the Aztec communities are in picture-writing.
The genealogical development of Sound-writing begins by the substitution of the sign of one idea for that of another whose sound is nearly or quite the same. Such was the early graphic system of Egypt, and such substantially to-day is that of the Chinese. Above stands syllabic writing, this as that of the Japanese, and the semi-syllabic signs of the old Semitic alphabet; while, as the perfected result of these various attempts, we reach at last the invention of a true alphabet, in which a definite figure corresponds to a definite elementary sound.
It is a primary question in American archæology, How far did the most cultivated nations of the western continent ascend this scale of graphic development? This question is as yet unanswered. All agree, however, that the highest evolution took place among the Nahuatl-speaking tribes of Mexico and the Maya race of Yucatan.
I do not go too far in saying that it is proved that the Aztecs used to a certain extent a phonetic system of writing, one in which the figures refer not to the thought, but to the sound of the thought as expressed in spoken language. This has been demonstrated by the researches of M. Aubin, and, of late, by the studies of Señor Orozco y Berra.[217]
Two evolutionary steps can be distinguished in the Aztec writing. In the earlier the plan is that of the rebus in combination with ideograms, which latter are nothing more than the elements of picture-writing. Examples of this plan are the familiar “tribute rolls” and the names of towns and kings, as shown in several of the codices published by Lord Kingsborough. The second step is where a conventional image is employed to represent the sound of its first syllable. This advances actually to the level of the syllabic alphabet; but it is doubtful if there are any Aztec records entirely, or even largely, in this form of writing. They had only reached the commencement of its development.